Tool for Checking / Deciphering Date Codes?

This bugs me too. So many times I have tried to find the brightest light in a properly lit (low light) beer store and hold the bottle just the right way in its weak shine to try and find the tiny black numbers on a brown bottle. I feel like they should put next to it in tiny letters, "Congratulations! You found it!"

 

This is true - we put a "best if used buy" date on our products along with a time stamp. The "best buy" is certainly convenient for the consumer, but it is a pain in the behind for us when we have to back track or code trace something. But our products do have a more or less reasonably defined shelf life, so the consumershould know when the best if used by date. Only so much information you can print and make it readable.

Julian date isn't terribly difficult to decipher when you know what/where it is and can actually see it Maybe the main problem is that it is not always readily apparent. If it is embedded in some pile of printed numbers/letters, then you would need the secret decoder ring in addition to the high power spotlight to find it in the format. Certainly some date information is superior to no information, but my opinion is whatever is used should be clear to us the consumers.

 

What if instead they listed :"You look like a dork holding and twisting this bottle up to a light!"

Cheers!

 

Since you changed the name of the thread... this is in response to your old one.

Boulevard's Smokestack Series are what always confuse me...

"The batch number consists of a letter or number indicating the brand, followed by the Julian date when the beer was bottled. For example, 70071 is a bottle of Tank 7 (7) bottled in 2010 (the first 0) on March 12th (071, the 71st day of the year). We also provide a “Best By” date (mo/yr) underneath the batch number, in this case 03/11"

 

Was thinking the same thing.

 

How does printing a 3 digit date (001-365*) use less ink that 4 digits (0101-1231) or month/day (JAN O1- DEC 31)? Hmmm...

Although I'm guessing "ink conservation" is way down the list, coming well after:

#179- "Annoys the !@#$ out of some math-phobic beer geeks"

* Yeah, yeah "366" this and all other leap years.​

 

Frankly I suck at math but dividing 180 by 30 isn't difficult.

 

He didn't change the subject... the mod merged it with a preexisting thread.

This topic always does have a number of members who somehow think the issue is lack of math skills. No, it isn't. As you illustrate, many times you need to decode the string of numbers before you can even start the math. And, besides, I shouldn't have to do math to read a date. Those who use the Julian codes are NOT (I say again) providing consumer information.

That is my gripe... provide date information to the consumer, not just your inventory tracking computers.

 

Don't you need a fourth digit for the year?

 

So-called (erroneously) "Julian" dating is just the 3 digit day of the year.

Obviously, in any of the 3 dating methods I noted the year is also typically given, either in one, two or 4 digit form, before or after the month/day or day of the year.

 

I've always known Julian as yddd... That to me is shorter than any combo I can think of. If you use more than two digits for a year, then yeah, my less ink argument goes away.

 

Yes, erroneously... the actual Julian date for right now as I type this is: 2457599.39516

Go ahead... do THAT math in your head!

 

True, for scientific purposes, for our purposes however the Julian date today is 211.

 

The format for date codes on 750 mL bottles of Smokestack Series beers has changed to simply indicate the date the beer was bottled followed by a best by month and year.

I'm looking at the back label for a bottle of Rye-on-Rye right now that says:

L072215-1 (Bottled on 7/22/15 1st bottling run of RoR for the year)
07-2017 (Best by July, 2017)

 

Exactly, same here. So much beer out there, if brewery (looking at you Lagunitas ) refuses to make it easy, I refuse to buy their beer.

And there are so many great local IPAs now, I go right to source and don't worry about the wild goose chase of finding and deciphering dates.

 

I'm reading this thread and I'm wondering, is there a good argument for not dating bottles with a clear and common dating format?

 

No worries.

 

Right or just count by threes for the months youa re in to get a not exact idea . Julian is a pain but if it's there it's better than the european beers that have codes like M15L. One letter is the month one the day and then the year . ><

 

Cause dating machines cost breweries money they don't have or don't wanna spend, pretty much