So the brewery I work at, each time we can, we set aside a 6pk for just Incase someone has a complaint about something (carb is off, it was super foamy, I dunno whatever). So far it’s only happened once, a Belgian beer that had been sitting on a shelf for way too long, that used diastatic yeast, got way way over carbed. We also use them to revisit seasonals to reassess if we want to change them at all.
Other then that we have a large pile of beer that just doesn’t stop accumulating.
At what point in time would you deem it acceptable to throw out? 6 months? 8 months? A year? Longer?
Glad I can help!
If you start with possible failure modes, when they are expected to crop up, you can “score” each batch for how long it makes sense to retain.
If you have other questiona you think QA could advise on, I’d love to help.