Beer is usually a sensitive product and should be treated the way any other disposable food is treated. After all you will consume it, right? It does have a shelf life contrary to exactly what a lot of us think. Regardless of whether it has been pasteurized and triple cold-filtered, soon enough, the day will come when beer will go sour and there is nothing worse compared to consuming a bad brew. Your drinking session is going to be ruined when that bad taste will hit your taste buds.

To avoid dead ales, here are some tips while shopping at your nearby store:

1) Head for that coolers; some people keep the beer fresh. Even for just a couple months, whenever a beer is left seated out at room temperature, it will start to degrade and becomes stagnant. On top of that, there's a huge chance that the same beer had been cold when moved and allowed to become warm, that is certainly a bad thing. Coolers or cold storage also delays oxidation in beer.

2) Seek out the “best before date”. Some will have “package date”, others print the “bottled on” date just over the label although some breweries employ the quality date in various places around the packaging and/or bottle. In the event you don’t discover any freshness date, beware!

3) Do not buy beer that is hit straight by sunlight. UV rays harms the brew. Excessive sunlight as well as heat both can provide the beer a “skunky” stale flavor. That’s the result of should the fragile hop oil spoils.

4) See dusts?If you do, then stay away. It’s a sign that the beer may be sitting, dead and unmoving for a long time.

5) Beer on discount sales is just a illusion. There isn't any such thing! There's a cause however why that 6-pack costs less than $5. Don’t be described as a cheapskate.

Naturally for any rule, there are exemptions. Generally, the rule of thumb is, the higher the alcohol percentage, the longer the shelf life.

So before grabbing any old beers think hard. Buy only the fresh ones and consume before expiration. You will also be doing yourself and others a favour, should you make it a point to notify the owner of the package store, or perhaps the brewer, when you encounter bad beers.