Back in the long ago, when my scruffy Santa Monica pub Father’s Office was still pretty much undiscovered by the outside world, I commenced to sell a little known beer from Anchor Brewing called Anchor Porter. Surprisingly light on the palate, it’s a rich and chocolatey beverage with hints of raspberry and especially delicious on draft. It’s the rare dark beer that women tend to favor against all stereotypes, and often a dainty lass would sport a pint of this ‘manly’ stuff while her gentleman escort sat beside her with a glass of chardonnay.

I first offered it in the late 1980s and was told it was the first Porter draft placement in the ‘Modern Era’, meaning (I think) since Fritz Maytag bought the brewery. It was to be the final draft beer placement from Anchor, completing the set of Anchor Steam, Anchor Wheat, Liberty Ale, and finally Anchor Porter, at the time all the draft beer Anchor offered…and being the first fresh, locally-brewed dark beer ever offered on tap at the Office, it’s arrival was awaited with great anticipation.

When we (and a small devoted group of regulars) first tasted it, it was revelatory. So fresh, so creamy, so delicious, it was kind of like a dessert, and was immediately a very important part of our sales profile, gaining adherents steadily and often being the final pint of a beer ’session’.

So, you may be thinking, what does this have to do with fresh beer? Didn’t you get it fresh? Was it old, stale, disgusting and out of date? OK, OK, I’ll get to that.

Anchor Brewing is scrupulous about freshness, as are all breweries. Old beer can destroy brand equity faster that anything in else in the beer business. Note A-B’s “born on” date stamped on each and every bottle you see, with an explanation of when the beer’s freshness will be compromised. Even so, sometimes things go wrong. It’s extremely rare, but it can happen.

The ‘problem’ was first noted by a regular Porter drinker. A new keg had arrived that day, and he was the first to sample it. He could tell right away something was different. “Wow,” he said, “this is really good—even better than usual!” I tried it, the bartender tried it, we all agreed it had a complexity, an intricacy, a depth we’d not tasted before. The reaction continued over the next few days.

A bartender finally followed up by checking the date on the keg. He had trouble believing it, but contrary to all of Anchor’s freshness standards, this keg had been delivered to us after its expiration date. It was the oldest keg of Anchor Porter we’d ever seen and should have noticeably deteriorated. On the contrary, it was delicious. We reported the date issue to our friend at Anchor, national brewery rep Bob Brewer. He offered to have the keg immediately replaced. “No way,” I replied, “It’s the best one yet”.

The next day I called the brewery with a special request in mind, but before I could voice it the brewery manager came to the phone and apologized profusely about the out-of-date product. “We’ve tracked it all down,” he explained, “and gotten rid of every keg”.

“Oh, no!” I said, knowing there were going to be some broken hearts at the pub, “you don’t understand. We’d have taken all you had!”