hefe best if consumed 4 weeks from capped?

i happened to go by the LHBS and the owner and i started talking. he commented that my recently bottled heffe should be fully consumed in the next 4 weeks or it will degrade in quality. From everything i have read and learned and whatnot i thought that the first 10 days of capped is just conditioning for carbonation and flavor development. this point is the soonest you should drink it. then you have 1-3 weeks of aging which lets the flavor profile really settle out into a good beer. if my calculations are correct this is at the 4 week mark and now the beer would be "bad?" is the man full of S&*t?

I think he is exaggerating a little. He may be right in that it STARTS to degrade at 4 weeks, but that start is really slow. I doubt you could tell the difference between a 4 week and a 5 week old hefe. I wouldn't be too concerned...

No worries. They don't even get "bad" just a little more mellow than a hefe should be. I am drinking a year old hefe right now. It is yummy, but different than it was fresh. Hmm, I said yummy.

we will see in about a week i guess. just hoping that i don't have to polish off 5 gal. because it is going to degrade in flavor.