Rubbed or scratched off Best By dates

I'll go ahead and suggest a slightly modified version of a quote of Hanlon's razor... "Don't attribute to malice that which can easily be explained by accident (stupidity)." I'd think it highly unlikely that a business would put forth the amount of effort to actively sabotage bottled on/best by/drink before dates when the majority of the purchasing public doesn't look at them. I'd be shocked if that was an efficient use of time spent on that project and ROR to the company (be it distributor or store).

 

I think I agree. One might argue that the big chain knows the average beer drinker isn't going to buy craft, let alone check bottle date. Given that, you'd assume they know the people buying craft might check dates (I know thats a bit of a generalization). I think it might make sense then that this could easily have been an accident...it makes sense to see scratch marks where the date was, otherwise it wouldn't have been rubbed off. I don't think it'd be worth their time to rub dates off to try and push product.

 

I saw a couple bombers of Ballast Point Dorado right around the time they changed up their labels, and the best by date was stamped on the actual label. They were in the clearance section at the grocery store, but the portion of the label where the date normally was was ripped off, and it was the old label vs. the new. It's almost as if they wanted to hide the fact they were selling a 8+ month old DIPA.

 

I recognize the intent of this post is folks (retailers) maliciously rubbing off dates but…

I just hate that so many breweries use a bottle dating system of black ink on brown bottles. Under the best of conditions these dates are next to impossible to read and it seems to me that whatever they are using for ink can get ‘smudged’ very easily.

If breweries really want to be customer friendly with their bottle dating, do what Sierra Nevada does: print the date in easy to read ink on the label using a ‘regular’ date. I have bottles of Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest and on the back label in white ink (on a brown background) it states: “PKGD 06/30/15”

If breweries truly care, and want to be open and transparent, there is an easy way to label your bottles and cans.

Cheers!

 

Condensation on the bottles in the cold cases can pose a problem with bottle dates, especially the common yellow ink ones. I've had quite a few times where I'll notice a nearly intact date code on my hand after fronting the shelves.

 

Does anyone know how commonly brewery bottling/canning line date stampers malfunction? I could easily imagine a scenario where bottling/canning machinery gets out of alignment or the stamp breaks leading to what appears to be rubbed off or scratched glass where a date should be. Brewers are not required by law to stamp bottles/cans, so a malfunction like that on the line wouldn't necessarily be a reason to stop production; and beer bottles/cans are shipped in cases that are often redundantly stamped or coded. I'm speculating though... I agree with @fritts211 that I would rule out other possibilities before deciding it's deliberate tampering that seems to be a lot of work/risk for minimal gain.

 

Randy, there was an extended period of time where the date stamper was broken on the Captain Lawrence bottling line. They eventually did fix this issue but they bottled for quite some time (6 months?) with the bottle date system not working.

Cheers!

Edit: A little bit of discussion here: http://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/captain-lawrence-bottle-dates.282634/

 

So finally found some fresh Sucks last nite on the other side of Houston (have to visit the in-laws more often) but it took me 4 minutes holding the bottle up to the light to find the date stamp. Then scored because they also had some Sorachi Ace in 4 packs which I had been looking for, and of course the date on that one was on the label which is almost impossible to read. I grabbed it anyway. Agree with the SN remark, it is clearly on the label, which made it quite easy to leave behind a couple of bombers I was about to get of the single hop series that were 120 days old, when the label clearly states drink before 100 days.

 

Victory has Enjoy By dates on the label that are easy to read. That is sort of OK with me since I can do the math to determine the bottling date but having a packaged date would be preferable.

Cheers!

 

I can easily read ink on a beer label. Reading black ink on a brown bottle is a very challenging for me.

Cheers!

 

I have a bottle of Victory Kuhl Kolsch in front of me right now. It has "Enjoy by 09 SEP 2015" on the label.

I drank this bottle quite some time ago; I am saving it to use for containing homebrewed beer someday.

Cheers!

 

I like the way you think!!

Cheers!

 

Usually happens to the stone ipas around here. It's like someone magically wipes them all off u can even see the white residue from the ink where it was. . Lately though, seems as though the dates are printed with more permanent ink.

 

I don't know about that in particular, but screw-ups definitely happen with the dating systems. For instance, I just bought a bottle of the Bruery's Smoking Wood. On the label it said 2014 edition, but I looked at the bottled on date and saw it was bottled in 2013. C'est la vie.