I'm not really familiar with the 22oz bottle format and haven't ever bought any, but I was checking out the selection at one of my locat liquor stores today and was very surprised at the dating situation on the beers. Aside from a couple bottles with the vintage year on them, I couldn't find anything in the way of dates on the bombers. Stone, Rogue, and Southern Tier had the widest selection of bombers at this store and not a single date to be found. There was even one of SNPA that only had some code on it. My question is, are bombers known for not having dates, or is there something else going on here?
I can't think of any breweries that date their 12oz. bottles but don't date their bombers (eg. Stone bombers should be dated).
Has nothing to do with the bottle size and everything to do with the brewery. Also be aware that some brewers date the case instead of the bottle so in the event of buying singles, you wouldn't see that. Personally, I prefer it to be inked right on the bottle and there's been many IPA's from reputable brewers that I've passed up because of it...I'm fed up with buying IPA malt bombs. I do understand this thread wasn't targeted at IPA's and I'm just using that as an example.
There was one bottle of Stone IPA that looked like it possibly had a very faint date on it, but I couldn't read it and none of the other bottles had anything visible at all. Could prolonged condensation remove the stamped dates? (All of these bottles were in a very cold cooler)
You may have some really old bombers in your local store. Stone currently has clearly marked best by dating on the bottom of the neck of bombers since early 2011, before that it was located on the bottom of the bottle vertically near the base. As of May or so 2011 Southern Tier has had clearly visible yellow/green(I'm color blond) ink on the bottom of the bomber near the base. Almost all seasonals last year onward had a clear dating on the bomber. Their 6 packs have donned the same format in the same location. Lagunitas has also recently printed Julian dating on their bombers on the neck. Should be clearly visible when held up to light. first 3 digits are the day of the year(though apparently the 4th digit is not the year) Other than those commonly known ones to myself, there area few others that use Julian dating on the base of the bomber that is difficult to read(Bear Republic for instance). I am pretty surprised that Rogue still doesnt date their stuff, even though they have one of the widest distributions.
Actually I was most disappointed with the IPAs not being dated. I really wanted to try the Stone IPA, but like you, I wasn't about to get stuck with a 5-6 dollar malt bomb.
Oh I know there are some old ones. There were some bottles of '08 vintage Arcadia Cereal Killer and Big Dick's Olde Ale. I really don't think they move much craft beer, as its more of a college town liquor/BMC store that just happens to have a respectable selection of good beer.
I'm with you, been burned too many times in the past but then again, I've also been blown away on taking some chances (although malt bomb has been the more likely outcome).
I think this may be true, as I have noticed that the dates on Stone products kept in the cooler do fade with time (even within the 3 month shelf-life), while the dates on the bottles kept outside of the cooler don't fade at all.
Not gonna lie. When I first read the subject heading I was thinking about some anthropomorphized beer hookups. Something like the Stone Arrogant Bastard meeting Clown Shoe's Tramp Stamp in a nightclub... But yeah, what ya'll are talking about makes much more sense.
