In most cases, yes, you can. Beer and cider carry a best-before date, not a use-by, and a best-before is about quality, not safety. Council food safety guidance says goods can be sold after their best-before as long as they're still of good quality and fit to consume, but once you do, you, not the brewer, are responsible for that quality. Anything marked use-by must not be sold after its date. And a big chunk of the back bar doesn't need a date at all: under the UK's food labelling rules, wine and any drink of 10% ABV or more are exempt from best-before dating. So the real question in a pub isn't "is it legal". It's whether you'd put your name to that pint, and why it was sat there long enough to go over.
Search for it and you get lockdown stories about millions of pints going down the drain, and supermarket forum threads. Nothing from behind a British bar about which dates matter, what you can do with stock that's gone over, and how to stop paying for it twice. So here it is.
What the date on the label means
The government's labelling guidance puts it plainly. A best-before date tells you when something might start to drop in quality. After it, it's usually safe but may not be as good. A use-by date is about safety, and eating or drinking something after its use-by could make you ill. Beer, cider and soft drinks normally carry a best-before.
Here's which drinks behind a bar need a date at all:
| Drink | Best-before needed? | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Beer and cider under 10% ABV, draught or packaged | Yes | Covered by the normal date-marking rules |
| Wine, sparkling wine, fortified wine and fruit wines | No | Exempt by name in the labelling regulation |
| Spirits, liqueurs, and any drink at 10% ABV or more, including strong beers | No | Exempt as "beverages containing 10% or more by volume of alcohol" |
| Low and no alcohol at 1.2% ABV or under | Yes | At 1.2% or less it isn't treated as an alcoholic drink for labelling, so the alcohol exemptions don't apply |
| Mixers, soft drinks, juices | Yes | Ordinary food rules |
Two things fall out of that table. Your spirits and wine can sit on a shelf for years without a legal date problem, which is exactly why they turn into dead stock quietly instead of noisily. And your low and no range is dated like a soft drink, so the alcohol-free lager you bought for Dry January is the most likely thing in the fridge to be over by spring.
Can you sell it after the date?
The council guidance I've seen is clear on the principle. Products past their best-before can be sold "provided that they remain of good quality and are fit for human consumption", sellers should make sure customers know the date has passed, and once you sell past the date, the responsibility for the product's quality is yours rather than the manufacturer's. Use-by is different. Past a use-by date it must not be sold or even displayed for sale.
In a shop that's a yellow sticker and a reduced price. Behind a bar it's awkward, because the customer never sees the bottle before it's poured. My take: don't quietly pour out-of-date packaged beer at full price. If it's fine, tell people and price it to go, a "bin end" board does the job. If it's not fine, it's waste, so log it as waste. This is general guidance, not legal advice, and your own council's food team is the one to ask if you're unsure.
Draught runs on a different clock
The date on a keg or cask is for the sealed container. Once it's on, the clock that matters is the one in your cellar. For cask, Cask Marque's working rule is to empty it within three days of going on sale, which I go through in my cask breather guide. Keg holds for longer once it's on, but follow the brewer's guidance for that product rather than a rule of thumb.
Dates matter at the back door too. In July 2020, after the first lockdown, Heineken was criticised after some pubs took delivery of kegs whose shelf-life dates had been changed from June to later in the year. SIBA's chief executive, James Calder, called it "a huge breach of trust with publicans and punters". Heineken said the beer had been kept in optimum conditions and checked against reference samples. Whoever was right, the lesson for a licensee is simple: check the date when you check the count. If a keg arrives with less life left than it'll take you to sell it, write that on the delivery note before you sign, the same way you'd note a short. My short deliveries guide covers the signing habit.
Why it goes out of date in the first place
It's almost never a date problem. It's an ordering problem with a deadline attached. The case of craft that one regular asked for and drank twice. The seasonal special ordered on the rep's say-so. The low and no range bought for January. Twelve bottles of a slow line when four would have done. Every one of those was bought before anyone checked what actually sells, which is what par levels are for.
What it costs
Made-up but realistic numbers. A 24-bottle case of a slow bottled beer at £1.50 a bottle, selling at £4.80. Ten go over and get binned. That's £15 at cost, £48 of takings that never happen, and the duty that was in the price paid for nothing. You can't claim that duty back yourself: relief on spoilt beer is the producer's claim, and any credit you get depends on your supplier's terms. My ullage and wastage claims guide explains who claims what.
Then the stocktake bit. If those ten bottles go in the bin and nobody writes it down, your next stocktake shows ten bottles you can't explain, and the first thought is always the worst one. Record it in a wastage log and it's a known loss with a reason instead of a mystery.
A rotation routine that takes ten minutes
| When | What to do |
|---|---|
| On delivery | Check dates on packaged stock and kegs. New stock goes behind old, never in front. |
| Filling the fridges | Old to the front, new to the back. Same rule for the bottle shelf in the cellar. |
| Stocktake | It's the one time someone touches every bottle. Note the date on your slowest lines while you're there. |
| Anything with about two months left | Push it (a board, or a cheaper price), ask the supplier if they'll take it back, and stop reordering it. |
| Anything over | Taste it. Fine: sell it as a bin end and say so. Not fine: bin it and log it. |
The two-month line is my own rule of thumb, not a regulation. Pick your own number, but pick one.
Where StockTap fits, and where it doesn't
StockTap doesn't track best-before dates bottle by bottle. I'm not going to pretend it does. What it does is flag the stock that isn't moving: the dead-stock report shows the slow lines and the total value sat on the shelf, so you spot the craft case three months before it's out of date instead of the week after. That's the bit that actually stops the binning. And if you'd rather not type your range in, send me your last stocktake and I'll set it up for you.
Common questions
Is it illegal to sell beer past its best-before date in the UK?
No. A best-before date is about quality, not safety. Council food safety guidance says products can be sold after their best-before as long as they're still of good quality and fit to consume, and customers should know the date has passed. Once you sell past the date, the quality is your responsibility.
Do spirits and wine have a best-before date?
They don't need one. UK food labelling rules exempt wines, including sparkling, fortified and fruit wines, and any drink containing 10% or more alcohol by volume from best-before dating.
Can you sell food or drink past its use-by date?
No. Anything marked with a use-by date must not be sold or displayed for sale after that date. Most beer, cider and soft drinks carry a best-before instead.
How long does a cask last once it's on?
Cask Marque's working rule is to empty a cask within three days of it going on sale. For keg, follow the brewer's guidance for that product.
Can I get the duty back on out-of-date beer I pour away?
Not directly. Duty relief on spoilt beer is claimed by the producer, and whether you get a credit depends on your supplier's terms. Log anything you pour away so it doesn't show up as unexplained loss in your stocktake.
Sources
- Best-before is about quality and use-by about safety: GOV.UK, Understanding food labelling: best before and use-by dates, checked 8 October 2026.
- Exemptions from the date of minimum durability for wines, liqueur wines, sparkling and aromatised wines, fruit wines, and beverages containing 10% or more by volume of alcohol: Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 as retained in UK law, Annex X, point 1(d), legislation.gov.uk, checked 8 October 2026.
- Drinks at 1.2% ABV or less are not alcoholic beverages for labelling, so the durability exemption does not apply: Business Companion (Trading Standards), Alcoholic beverages and alcohol in food, last updated March 2026, checked 8 October 2026.
- Selling after best-before if still good quality and fit for consumption, customers should know the date has passed, responsibility moves to the seller, use-by goods must not be sold or displayed after the date: London Borough of Bromley, Can a shop sell or display out-of-date food?, checked 8 October 2026.
- Heineken keg shelf-life change and SIBA's James Calder quote: Inside.beer, UK: Heineken heavily criticized for extending keg beer shelf life, 13 July 2020, checked 8 October 2026.
- Cask three-day rule: Cask Marque guidance, as set out with its source in my cask breather guide. The 24-bottle worked example and the two-month rule are my own illustration.