Yeah, they went back to an all-malt recipe - supposedly the same as brewed in Germany. Makes sense since both Labatt and Lowenbrau were InBev brands by then. Soon after the US started getting German Lowenbrau again - for a few years... and then, the ABInBev bean counters found it was coming up short quite a few beans. (I wonder why? ) Could +2 decades of the Miller-brewed Fauxenbrau have anything to do with it?) Luckily, I got $3 off my last 12 pack.
These are the codes you are looking for (in my best Obi Wan voice) https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/date-codes-for-imported-usa-german-beer.658248/ first post has the answer and most all others you’d ever need.
Just returned from Germany. While there, I questioned former head brewmaster Martin Knab at Schlenkerla about dating. He stated the the EU required dating on bottles since 1987 (Or 1989 - I can't remember which he said). The date on the Schlenkerla bottle is the bottling date + six months so the bottle of Marzen in my hand was bottled in March 2023. He also stated that any cans you find in the US are filled here and any bottles are imported from Germany. In all my years of drinking Schlenkerla Marzen I've NEVER found a dated bottle in the US.
Those undated bottles in the States are one reason some people are scared of (or think they don't like) rauchbier. IMO there's a pretty big difference between a fresh pour of Schlenklerla Maerzen and a bottle of bock that's 4 years old. I used to be indifferent to the stuff until I actually tried some that was fresh. It does age pretty well, but it's still a very different thing IMO.
The Schlenkerla cans I've seen recently don't have a canned-on date either that I could find (there used to be a canned-on date on the sticker on the four-pack holder). Lame.
I reached out to Tucher for help in deciphering their date code and received a very quick overnight response. The code on my Helles lager was L 12250?. It was deciphered to L means batch; 2 stands for the year 2022; 175 means the 175th day of the year = 2022.06.24; 09 is the tanknumber which the beer was filled from. So apparently the ? is really a 9. They also said in the future this date code would be replace by a best before and a production date.
In the US, of course, that same date would be written "05/12/2019". "Gee," some folks might think, "I wonder how the date would be formatted if a US brewery and a German brewery collaborated on a beer?" Well, we have an example. Do both! No confusion there! (Well, thanks to it being the 31st. If it was any day between the 1st and the 12th > uh-oh). But how would the recommended shelf life be determined? (Too) Many German beers exported to the US have a one year Best Before date. One year would normally be the extreme for a US brewery, but, it could happen. So, how would a collaborative brew's BB date be figured, then? Apparently, they add them together and get 2 years from packaging! Simple! (And some people say "Math is hard.")
the date code on the bottle of Aventinus Eisbock I drank the other night was interesting. "21.259" which I would interpret as 259th day of 2021. Which would be September 16th. But then it also had "080921" which I would interpret as DDMMYY so would be September 8th, 2021. Weird the two codes are 8 days apart. Or is the second code mean something else?
Just returned from Beer Distributor. Bot Weihenstephaner. No more secret codes. Straight up dates, day of the month first, month, and a 4-digit year. Simple, like a date with Stormy Daniels.
"Best by" date? If so, what is the "shelf life" period the brewer is basing it on? Or, since you wrote, "dates" - both Bottling and BB dates? Yeah, more likely one or the other is not a date. Why would a brewer put two "Bottling" or "Best by" dates on a label? Usually if there are two actual dates, it's a Packaging and a BB. (Or printing error?)
I have never seen Tucher products in bottles around my area. We get the helles, Hefeweizen, dunkelweizen, festbier, and now there rotbier.
