SN Bigfoot ID

The picture has © 1989 S.N.BR. CO. on it. Not sure how helpful that is. Love the label btw and it's almost in mint condition. What's the ABV?

 

Iso:this beer ft:my soul. Kidding I have no soul left. That cap scares me a little bit. It looks worse for wear, hopefully it's not leaking.
Crack it open and let us know how it tastes.m

 

I don't think Id drink it, seriously

 

Where is @jesskidden when we need him?

 

Just pour it in a glass and "study" it for a few minutes. If it looks and smells fine, then give it a taste. If it's from the late 80's or early 90's, it's probably bad.

 

Good catch- I bet that tells the tale. I just tried google images, and found one that I think said 1992, but it took a hell of a lot of zooming and squinting, so who knows what that's worth. It does make sense, though, that for a certain period, the vintage was noted on the label in that manner. (In other states, of course, the crown would have the year prominently displayed- back to '87 from what I could see).

 

Even if it is well past it's prime, I feel like you should drink this in the name of beer science.

 

A great score! The crown is a little worrisome, but it wouldn't stop me from drinking it along side of a fresh one.

 

TIS THE SEASON! 2015 is on the shelf my dude.

 

I think anything dangerous would be noticeable before you drank it. Otherwise, if it's bad, it just won't taste good.

 

I think its like between 87-89/90 because that was when they didn't have the foot with the date on it on the caps

 

I have Bigfoot from 2005 with the same label. The cap reads 2005 Expedition, and it's definitely not a twist off.

 

"Florida" on the crown was simply the state regulation at the time to signify that the Florida excise tax on that bottle was paid. (Similar to how cigarettes have a inked tax stamp on the base, although that is done on the wholesale level and the crowns are obviously applied at the brewery. Don't know the exact process on how it worked, but I think the "generic" version meant that SN didn't want to spend the money on a small quantity of Bigfoot logoed "Florida" crowns) .

Can lids were typically stamped or embossed for the same reason. Don't know when Florida changed the law. Numerous states once had similar regulations.





For a date, I'd look for a two digit "year" embossed around the base of the bottle and assume it was bottled in the previous year's bottles (since it's a January release). For example, I just pulled a 2004 Bigfoot from the cellar, and near the embossed bottle manufacturer's logo there's a "03". Also, there a white ink stamped code (under"G" in Bigfoot) that I assume is a date code "3347" on mine - 347th day of 2003. Never noticed that on a Bigfoot label before, but since the crowns were dated there was no reason to look. Unfortunately, that date code is missing from the image in Roguer's OP.

 

US beer labels could not legally list ABV (except in a very few states that required it) until the mid-1990s on the national level. Even after it became legal, not every brewer did it - in some cases, because they did not want to print different labels for distribution in states that legalized it and those that did not.

Well, as I noted, the bottle manufacturer's embossed coding along the base of the bottle (not on the base itself where it was on older bottles) includes the two digit year the bottle was manufactured, so the beer inside such a bottle obviously cannot be any older than that date and typically is within a year of that date (few breweries are going to buy bottles in quantities so large that they'll last more than a year). This dating method works for every dated SN bottle (Bigfoot and Celebration) I have going back to the 1980s.

 

I've had a white labeled one before. I believe the abandoned the white labels in 2007. So its at least that old.

 

Yeah, so probably a 1993 Bigfoot (bottled late in the year for Jan. release). A 1990 Celebration Ale bottle I have is glass mfg'r coded "P-2 21 90", for example. In-between your 21 and 92 there is probably an oval with a digit - could be an "I" maybe a "1". That is probably the Owens-Illinois logo being used at the time.

In the immediate post-Repeal period, when the Feds were writing the new alcoholic beverage regulations, brewers did not want to be required to list ABV on the beer labels. Still a bit gun-shy after Prohibition, they were still in the mindset of not wanting to stress the alcohol level in beer (which they felt was a side-effect of Prohibition).

Most beer in the US at the time was between 4 - 6% abv and they did not want create an "arms race" of higher and higher alcohol. And that did happen to a certain extent after ABV on labels was legalized in the mid-90s, especially in the malt liquor market, but also in the craft market.