Anchor Brewing Liberty IPA

So you would buy beer that was not good as long as you knew how old it was?

 

In a land of no bottle dates, dates that rub off with a glance, dates that feel nearly impossible to find, dates where a 5 looks identical to a 6, date codes that do not have a published translation from the brewery, dates that weren't printed well, etc., etc.... Anchor certainly gets a thumbs up more than a thumbs down even though there is room for improvement. There are other products that deserve far more criticism. Everyone puts Stone on a pedestal and I bought a Stone beer the other day that didn't have an adequate bottle date (but I'm not claiming that Stone products are those that deserve the criticism just to be clear).

 

Anchor kicks nine kinds of ass and I've loved them since the early 1980s, so I'm willing to put in the sort of high-intensity cognition required to figure out their dating code. I think about which month features a Y (or which month features a G) and, seconds later, hey presto.

 

Anchor is lucky to have a customer like you willing to 'crack' their codes. I suspect they would benefit financially if there were more people like you.

I personally prefer to send my money to breweries that do not use a 'secret code' to date their beers.

Cheers!

 

Chris, you are a more 'forgiving' customer than I am. I would have placed that beer back on the shelf.

If breweries want a robust business (lots of customers with varying willingness to expend effort) then is behooves them to have easy to read and easy to understand dates. Unless they really do not want the customers to read/understand the dates.

Cheers!

 

Jesus. My head hurts after reading through that bit of stoned logic.

 

So the picture in the original post shows a date code of "6N3"

6 = 2016
N = November
3 = ...

... Uhhh 3 = November 33rd!

 

A "Y" in the date indicates the last letter of the day of the week it was bottled.

 

What is Anchor trying to hide? Or our they just trying to be different for the sake of being different? How hard would it be to just put month/day/year, I would really like to understand the logic behind not changing it, any of the brewers out there that won't make it easier for the consumer, I just don't get it so I choose not to spend my money on it.

 

I think they (and other breweries) want to have their cake and eat it too.

For those decerning beer consumers, they can point to the code. But it's also not straight forward, so they can still get away with selling old beer to consumers that don't care.

 

That's what I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around, I brew beer and if I sold my beer to consumers, I wouldn't want someone drinking a >6 month old ipa of mine and think this is what I intended this beer to taste like. So it only makes sense to me (take it for what it's worth) to clearly date my product so ANYONE who picks up my beer knows when it was put in the bottle. Even an aging 56 year old man that uses readers to read tiny print, like me.

 

But then who eats the cost of the beer that doesn't sell after 6 months?

The brewery? The distributor? The retail store? I don't think any of them want to.

 

Yea, not sure how that part of it works but maybe if they used a simple date then they wouldn't have to worry about not selling enough of their product. I know I've put back MANY beers on the shelf because I couldn't see/or cypher the date.

 

I'm more than a few older than that, Mr fb, and you can frequently find me standing in the aisle at bottle shops, small LED flashlight in one hand, and twirling a bottle in the other hand, squinting through my peepers looking for something......anything. (I'm talking to you, Lagunitas, who's dates show great.....after the bottle is empty.)

 

That beer was disappointing.

 

I liked Liberty Ale the way it was, but I will give this a try for sure.

 

Liberty is a guaranteed blast from the past. Double Liberty was a blast from the past IN YOUR FACE.

 

Hahahahaha cheers

 

Double liberty was delicious. THAT should be the seasonal.