Quiet right, V bad wording on my part . Sort of idea I was going for was 'best before' just indicates when food(or comestibles) is at its highest quality, it can still be served but may taste or look crap, not illegal to sell (maybe stupid[loss of reputation etc] but not illegal). 'Use by' indicates food that should not be eaten after a certain date.
Best by- Quality Use by - Safety
There are 'Irish Pubs' (run by Kiwis) all over the world :-)
Probably only works with a ex-pat population (of maybe many generations) that has a rose tinted view of the old country. Possibly bearing no resemblance what so ever to a typical pub in Ireland (or even a pub in Ireland 50 years ago)
Exactly - but you have probably not experienced the cellerman's workmanship in one of my local Wetherspoon pubs!
They were all told to go and find jobs in Tesco!
Tell me about it. I have to go to the cursed place because a couple of pals can't go anywhere else, mobility reasons. I drink keg lager or tinned beer, it's that bad. I've tried several pints that were just shy of vinegar. Not got vast experience of them so maybe it's a one-off.
I did go on a small brewery tour a few years back. They complained that Wetherspoons distort the market and drive prices low by bulk buying just as the beer is on the cusp of its sell by date. So maybe it's gone off too.
Yes. Subject to the qualification that there's no penalty for sellers who err on the safe side. Hence I am one of those who read "use by" dates not as "should not be eaten after" but as "have a look/sniff before eating after...". Or in the case of some cheeses "probably not worth eating /before/..." :)
I'm not sure how that distorts the market that much. If a small brewery has a mass of unsold beer close to its "sell by date" what else are they going to do with it? It's not zero cost to throw it away.
With larger breweries the price paid by the public in supermarkets for beer is often less than the brewery sell the same to publicans. This probably distorts the market much more.
The percentage of beer that is off when it reaches any pub is probably a vanishly small number. Cellarmanship (incl. stock control) and hygiene have more to do with what comes out of the pump.
Having a sniff is COMPLETELY USELESS. It is no indication of fitness to eat.
From:-
Food can look and smell fine even after its use by date, but that doesn't mean it's safe to eat. It could still be contaminated.
You cannot *see, smell or taste* the bacteria that cause food
poisoning.
Never used to like 'stinky' cheese but now...
I agree unreservedly with the gov.uk statement.
I disagree with your "completely useless". The fact that /some/ food can kill despite the absence of bad smell does not mean the presence of a bad smell is not an indicator. Similarly the fact /some/ food can kill while looking fine is not a good reason to ignore eg maggots on meat.
And the risks aren't uniform. Eg I would judge my eyes/nose/tongue on dairy products and meat but not on live oysters or other raw shellfish.
Same here - refurbished the pub but not the 'expertise' so I offered, without asking the manager of my favourite pub as consultant. She was reckoned, by two reps who covered half of England, to be the best beer keeper in the country, i.e. thae whole world and Potters bar. Even a 5.2% ale that was brewed a sack barrow delivery away was off. I still have about £15 quids worth of CAMRA tokens to use - need to make a profit on my membership!
"Harry Bloomfield"; "Esq." snipped-for-privacy@NOSPAM.tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message news:rdhk9a$qfo$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me...
I regularly drink some of mine that is over a year old. It is noticeably different to when it is only a couple of months since bottled, but will fine to drink.
But the beer in pub kegs is done differently, It doesn't have secondary fermentation in the keg, it just has CO2 injected like they do with soft drink.
I forget the line of reasoning. It was something along the lines of your next production run is determined by your previous. Wetherspoons would hold out until the last moment and hoover up beer that had to be sold at wholesale auction events. This meant the beer was sold, informing the next run of brewing, but not at the expected price.
Yes, I'd have thought so too. If I had to guess, at Wetherspoons it's three things: they keep open kegs on tap for far longer than they should (vinegar beer); they don't let the barrels settle, and simply roll them into place when changing (maybe 70% of the pints I've had have been cloudy); and/or hygiene and things like cellar temperatures (the manager has told me he has problems maintaining the correct temperature).
Possibly, but the joke used to be that most Wetherspoon staff were McDonald rejects including the seemingly the large number of managers on duty at one time. My local Wetherspoon was once used as a training pub.
Do everything by the book irrespective of the needs or number of customers. Dead on 10pm remove most of the staff from serving on a busy bar to go on cleaning duty etc. Not being served is a way to empty a pub an hour before closing time and to encourage repeat custom. Even during slack time not being severed by the two employees behind the bar on coffee-tea only duty - but with no customers to order tea or coffee.
Can't blame Wetherspoons for that; if the brewers don't like it, every now and then they could sell it cheap to someone else so that Wetherspoons miss out, encouraging them to buy earlier or pay more next time ...
A lot of 'spoons are in converted buildings that probably don't have cellars, certainly not proper pub cellars.
I would have expected them to have a fairly fast turnover of beer stock though, or do they have such a wide range they still end up with slow-moving stock.
Owain
A proper pub cellar is not a requirement for keeping beer in good condition and even pubs with an underground cellar can easily manage serve "off" beer.
I shall be able to get that info for you tomorrow - final day sorting out the CCTV, outside lights, wifi to the beer garden so that the waitress service app works etc for the big opening on Saturday.
Apparently they tested the batch not the pubs individual kegs.
I suppose there is some logic there, as the original 'best before' date must have been estimated on the basis of the characteristics of the batch.
I don't drink beer at present but I am pretty confident that any of my beer enthusiast friends would be able to tell immediately if a pint was 'off'.
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