First off - I'm a big, big fan of Driftwood Brewery. 2015 was a good year as they began to distribute in AB. A month has not gone by without me buying at least one bottle of their beer - and in most cases several. It's just top notch beer. They used to date their beer with very easily readable stamps on the caps. I loved it. Then they went to much more difficult to read date stamps on the necks of the bottles. In many cases I have not been able to find the stamp at all. In several cases I don't think there was a stamp at all. So, I don't get it. We, the consumer, want date stamps. Easily read and easily found. I often won't buy an IPA from a US Brewer without a date stamp because I have had many let downs. Several brewers have lost my business for this alone. Driftwood was a bright light. Why the change? Fortunately, usually Driftwood in AB is generally pretty fresh. However, recently I did get stuck with a Fat Tug brewed in April. It wasn't terrible - but it wasn't as good as a fresh one.
I'm with ya'. Sucks they moved the date from the cap to the neck but I think that was a function of them upgrading their equipment so I'm letting it slide. It does seem that there's something strange going on with the dating for AB bottles though. I used to work as a retailer in Victoria where we'd get new batches of Fat Tug delivered directly from the brewery every couple of weeks. I think there was only one batch that ever came without any date stamp at all and that was right when they were making the switch from cap to neck stamping, I want to say around October. Since I've been in Calgary, I've checked for dates on Fat Tug at about five different retail spots and I think 4 of 5 have been undated. The only bottle I found stamped was dated September. I think it's pretty unlikely that all of these undated bottles came from that one batch in October but I can't think of any logical explanation as to why AB lost its date stamping somewhere along the way. It's too bad because Fat Tug was my go to beer in Victoria but I've still yet to buy it in AB since moving.
