I didn’t freeze mine for a couple years and recently used it and it turned out fine. I think it keeps for a really long time in its concentrated paste form. One of its advantages perhaps.
About the color…mine are certainly not clear and golden like the pics show online. Mine are dark green. Called NB and they said that’s normal. Further looking around and I learned it depends on how they extract them.
Bummer. I’ve been wanting to order some from yakima, but that doesn’t sound too fun. I am a rinse only guy when it comes to my kettle and chiller. Once or twice a year I’ll scrub with barkeepers friend.
It is not hard to get clean the kettle. It does tend to clog up my scrub sponge though. It feels like pitch, but cleans much easier.
The real value is that it doesn’t add the volume of hop material that pellets do. I want my IPAs maxed out on IBUs and flavor/aroma additions, and that takes a lot of hops (my latest 5 gallon IPA batch took 13 oz. of hops in addition to the hop shot for bittering).