"Best Before" date

[Eddy Monsoon]

So,

How important are they ?

What happens over time ?

What's the Max anyone's gone over and it's still drinkable ?

Asking for a friend

 

[golfandbrew]

They are good indicator of how fresh the beer is. How important the freshness is, is a bit style dependent.

Staling will happen over time, but that is more related to packaging and handling. Neither of which anyone can really know. But you can buy from bottle shops that you know are storing the beer well or have good turnover. This also why buying direct from a brewery is always best. You eliminate any transport and storage unknowns from the middle.

 

[terminal2k]

by definition, a use by date indicates something within the product can make you sick after this date, a best before date indicates when a product may become stale and lose flavour but isn't likely to make you sick. in saying that, life is too short to drink crap beer.

 

[Grmblz]

A best before just means that after X amount of time it's still, harmless/efficacious/palatable.
Let's take a drug, any drug, the authorities test the drug for how many yrs? Let's say 10yrs, after which the efficacy is 85% as opposed to 90% at day one, their cut off is actually 80%, do they hold back for another 10yrs? Well given the cost of testing probably not, they will just say best before 10 yrs because their testing has shown efficacy within that period. Note the drug would probably be beneficial for the next 20 or 30 yrs, but who will wait that long, and how much money would it cost to continually test/monitor. How many yrs would pass and how much money spent before a "use by" date could be established?

To answer your questions:

Depends what you're talking about.

Change: good and/or bad.

14yrs ish maybe.

2000 to 2001 ish, Kegged (19ltr) an Imperial stout, and a barley wine (3 stouts, 2 barley wines) put them under the house, subsequently found my wife in bed with a bricklayer, mmm you did ask what happens over time did you not?
Luckily had two houses at that time so removed myself to the tenanted property (little ex govy job)
2004 with my new partner (now and still is my wife) went to PNG (ironically both of us wanting to escape the "Oh I'm sorry" from our previous partners)
2011 returned to Aus
2012 got a msg from my ex "can you come and clean out your s**t from under the house?
Retrieved numerous kegs and milk cartons full of bottles, the snails had eaten any chance of identifying the bottles, but the 5 full kegs I remembered, just back from overseas takes a while and many bottles were tried, not many were palatable, with about 50% undrinkable.
2014 Off to PNG again, NFW are those kegs going under the house again, so I dug out my old faithfull (2 tap fridge that I brought with me in 1985 from the UK) for the "farewell party".
Now! fully expecting the whole lot to be chucked: 1 barley wine was undrinkable, 1 Imperial stout was borderline undrinkable (my palate) but the other barley wine was considered pretty good (I would give it a 6 ish) the other 2 stouts however were bloody marvelous.
The party was Saturday, Sunday morning had bodies all over the place (Canberra summer) but the highlight for me was people showing up on Monday afternoon asking if there was any more of "that stout" left. And they weren't traditional stout drinkers.

 

[yankinoz]

2014 Off to PNG again, NFW are those kegs going under the house again, so I dug out my old faithfull (2 tap fridge that I brought with me in 1985 from the UK) for the "farewell party".

In PNG, is the choice still between San Mig and South Pacific ("bia bilong yumi," but in fact a subsidiary of Asia-Pacific)?

 

[wide eyed and legless]

A best before just means that after X amount of time it's still, harmless/efficacious/palatable.
Let's take a drug, any drug, the authorities test the drug for how many yrs? Let's say 10yrs, after which the efficacy is 85% as opposed to 90% at day one, their cut off is actually 80%, do they hold back for another 10yrs? Well given the cost of testing probably not, they will just say best before 10 yrs because their testing has shown efficacy within that period. Note the drug would probably be beneficial for the next 20 or 30 yrs, but who will wait that long, and how much money would it cost to continually test/monitor. How many yrs would pass and how much money spent before a "use by" date could be established?

To answer your questions:

Depends what you're talking about.

Change: good and/or bad.

14yrs ish maybe.

2000 to 2001 ish, Kegged (19ltr) an Imperial stout, and a barley wine (3 stouts, 2 barley wines) put them under the house, subsequently found my wife in bed with a bricklayer, mmm you did ask what happens over time did you not?
Luckily had two houses at that time so removed myself to the tenanted property (little ex govy job)
2004 with my new partner (now and still is my wife) went to PNG (ironically both of us wanting to escape the "Oh I'm sorry" from our previous partners)
2011 returned to Aus
2012 got a msg from my ex "can you come and clean out your s**t from under the house?
Retrieved numerous kegs and milk cartons full of bottles, the snails had eaten any chance of identifying the bottles, but the 5 full kegs I remembered, just back from overseas takes a while and many bottles were tried, not many were palatable, with about 50% undrinkable.
2014 Off to PNG again, NFW are those kegs going under the house again, so I dug out my old faithfull (2 tap fridge that I brought with me in 1985 from the UK) for the "farewell party".
Now! fully expecting the whole lot to be chucked: 1 barley wine was undrinkable, 1 Imperial stout was borderline undrinkable (my palate) but the other barley wine was considered pretty good (I would give it a 6 ish) the other 2 stouts however were bloody marvelous.
The party was Saturday, Sunday morning had bodies all over the place (Canberra summer) but the highlight for me was people showing up on Monday afternoon asking if there was any more of "that stout" left. And they weren't traditional stout drinkers.

So, it was't just the bricks he was laying.

 

[Grmblz]

@ yank In 2004 the beer was "brown bottle" /South Pacific, later on they introduced Export, which didn't really catch on as it was marketed as a premium beer and cost more. The main claim to fame is the brown bottle was drinkable at tropical temp's, not great but drinkable. The brewery is in Moresby at the end of spring garden road, I was told the recipe for SP was formulated by Heineken.

@weal That's the main issue, he never laid a single brick the lazy bast**d.

 

[yankinoz]

@ yank In 2004 the beer was "brown bottle" /South Pacific, later on they introduced Export, which didn't really catch on as it was marketed as a premium beer and cost more. The main claim to fame is the brown bottle was drinkable at tropical temp's, not great but drinkable. The brewery is in Moresby at the end of spring garden road, I was told the recipe for SP was formulated by Heineken.

@weal That's the main issue, he never laid a single brick the lazy bast**d.

Heineken hold the controlling stock in Asia-Pacific. Yep, back in the ages when I spent four years in Moresby, slabs of warm SP were given away in Highland feasts along with pigs. People drank to kisim spak {get sparked).

Sounds like expats and a few nationals would welcome a brewpub, but the cost of providing security might be prohibitive.

 

[Grmblz]

Heineken hold the controlling stock in Asia-Pacific. Yep, back in the ages when I spent four years in Moresby, slabs of warm SP were given away in Highland feasts along with pigs. People drank to kisim spak {get sparked).

Sounds like expats and a few nationals would welcome a brewpub, but the cost of providing security might be prohibitive.

Mi save gut.
Unfortunately 1975 represented down elevator, it's been in a nose dive ever since, and continues unabated, 2004 (when I arrived) wasn't great but being an ex London publican, and used to "not particularly civilised" I found the freedom from our nanny state bloody marvelous, responsible for your own actions doesn't really exist here, over there it was a whole different story, free to do whatever you want, but screw up, and wari bilong yu!
By the time I left however (2015) the corruption had reached a whole new level, to the point that I was happy to leave, and unlike my many Papuan friends I had somewhere to go.
The security is easy, the never ending pigs at the trough (politicians/local bureaucrats) is a different story.
My house often has visiting "nationals" they are such a wonderful people, even the highlanders that many expat's and a many coastals have problems with are great, but you do need to understand and take into account their culture, they are after all tribal, but if I had to pick a word for them it would be "staunch"
Sorry for the long post, just so many fond memories.