Imagine if Lagunitas actually had legible normal dates on their bottles..?

i like Julian dating, I just divide the number by 30 and its roughly when it was bottled
lagunitas (especially IPA and Sumpin') move so steadily that they should almost always be somewhat fresh in a store that sells them well

 

Never thought about an app for the date - brilliant! Saw a few in the app store, but only one was free.
Which one do you guys use?

 

Automated date stampers are: A. Annoying to use because you have about four or five buttons in which you are handling every single function involved and B. Not cheap.

When the only inputs to change the text on your printer consists of an up and down buttons, and an OK / SET key and it takes five minutes to change a few letters in one sentence. You figure out the this has to get done, and this would be nice to get done, but.. priorities out. And for a lot of places changing the date on the stamper to a regular August 07, 2015, or 08/07/15 is apparently pretty damn low.

 

Imagine if all brewers had #freshbeer info on their bottles

 

Try the super-quick math in your head app. To use it, you take the Julian date, divide by 30 in your head (that's months), and the remainer is the additional days. For example, last month I picked up some Sculpin with a 166 Julian date. 150 means it is after the first 5 months of the year, plus 16 days. IOW, within a day or two of June 16th.

 

Unfortunately the moon, the sun and the stars need to align properly before you can actually see the date.

I stopped buying their beer because I refuse to stand in a store and find the proper light and angle to actually see the date. I just move on and buy beer from on their competitors who have readable dates.

 

im usually sitting there for a few minutes trying to find the date, and then eventually i just give up and move on. I only buy stuff that i know was just released from them at this point. their dating machines blow. julian is fine if you can actually see it.

 

Julian dates are easy to me. 182 is about mid year. So any number before is oldest. Here it is August already. A number after 182 is closer to our days now. Simple. Finding them is another story.

 

On bottles sure, but the six packs of cans? In those little cardboard boxes? Where are those dates?

 

Yup. This right here

Obviously I prefer regular bottled dates on the label, but if you hold the neck up to the light and make sure it has a "5" for the second number right now you're good. I do agree that they are needlessly camouflaged though. Then again, Fat Heads uses a bright neon green ink that smears/ rubs off if you look at it too long.

 

Julian date apps, conversion tables, refusing to buy the beer, etc. Jesus, sorry if I sound like an ass, but why not just learn how Julian dates are written and do a little quick and basic math? I know it takes effort and you might need to use your brain, but that'll only make the beer more enjoyable (especially if you break a sweat during the math portion) .

 

Bah! What's the point of all this technology if we still have to think?!?!?

 

At the price point that they offer their beers, this is but a minor complaint

 

I dont think anyone is saying that Julian dates are hard. The complaint here is that you can barely see or find them on the bottle.

 

This is why America is failing.

 

It's very easy to get an idea within a few days. Months are essentially 30 days. Take the number, see how many times 30 goes into it. Then use the remainder to determine the day of month. This is 4th Grade math.

But I wish the julian codes were easier to read.

 

Honestly, you have to look for a couple seconds in the light and there it is. This doesn't bother me. Breweries that don't use dates bother me.

 

I do not find them easy to read at all. Since I am near 60 it is almost impossible for me to find and read them. Since my local TW has a lot of out of date IPA's I have passed many times on Lagunitas after trying to find and read the date.

 

I do the same as above. I screenshot the julian calender and save it on my phone.

 

i posted roughly the same thing yesterday; I'm 61. Quite a few people liked the post indicating, I think, agreement.

When I read a post like @bennetj17's post above, I begin to think maybe the problem is ME! (and you, and the rest of the other presumably old farts who liked my post.)

Think I'll schedule an eye exam.

 

My pet peeve is breweries that use cans that don't date at all. *cough*Saint Archer*cough*

 

oh well they may be owned by millercoors soon

 

Your thread title seriously made me laugh out loud.

Reading the thread, I'm also amazed at people's passion for Julian dating

 

I don't think Julian dates are too bad. What peeves me is when they put two 4 or 5 digit numbers on there, one a julian date, the other some sort of bottling line # and or timestamp. Then I have to guess which is which. I think I recently saw this on a bomber of hop stoopid.

 

man you have to do some satanic ritual just to figure out what the code mean after trying to find it for 15 min

 

You think Julian is bad, try deciphering the vagaries of German bottling codes! Crazy combinations of letters and numbers, Julian weeks + single digit years, it's a code breaker's delight!

 

I've seen many Sucks 32oz bottles without dates.

 

i'm sorry but there is just no excuse not to use a regular, legible date. Other Half is brewery only, sells out after a day or two, and they date their stuff. It really annoys me that Lagunitas doesn't follow suit when they are a relatively large brewery with national distribution, and most of their beers are hoppy.

 

Why not just put the bottled on date on the label like Bells does with Two Hearted. Takes 2 seconds to deceide whether to buy or pass.

 

I believe the date is on the top of the carton in the corner. It's a plain laser printed date. I will have to double check when I get home. If you have the can in hand, its printed on the bottom.

 

I thought that we would but it doesn't seem to have made a difference unfortunately.

 

Yes, same as Firestone Walker. Cheers to the breweries that do this.

 

Really how simple is that, they all should follow this.

 

OMG, I do the exact same thing with their bottles. Lol! I must look like a lunatic in stores.

 

How are they your "favorite brews" if you don't buy them because they don't have a legible normal date?

 

I did the same thing today with a Hop Stoopid, and wound up buying it even though I couldn't be sure if it said 175 or 115. As it turned out, it was fresh as a daisy, but I'm not so sure I want to go through all that every time.

 

All their Codes are fairly easily(depending on the lighting) found on the middle of the neck. It could be better, but I don't usually have much trouble figuring out when it was bottled. Really they should just start canning, with a canned on date on the bottom

 

Yup. Julian is no problem. But, finding that tiny ass black writing on the neck of the bottle is the challenge.

 

Just take the machine that prints the date on the bottle and move it to the end of the line (and down a little) so it prints the date on the label. Problem solved.