Lagunitas 12-pack Date Code

Hopefully some BA has a 'Little Orphan Annie Decoder' to crack the code here.

FWIW, if a brewery can't be bothered to use an easy to understand packaging date I can't be bothered to give them my money.

Cheers!

 

Lagunitas uses Julian date code.
I think 306 would be November 2nd

 

Trick or treat - 2 days after Halloween.

 

Agreed. Thing is, Lagunitas was bothered enough to put an actual date on bottles of Born Yesterday. And if I remember correctly, the date was in a contrasting color as opposed to their current practice of using black ink on brown glass...

 

Hopefully this is true. Fresh Lagunitas IPA is still one of my favorite everyday beers, but I've had no way of knowing what's old and what's not. I assumed the code was some kind of internal thing and have just been getting pints at a local restaurant.

 

http://longpelaexpertise.com/toolsJulian.php

 

If I remember correctly it is the 306th day (Nov 2nd) of year 2021 (the 1 after the Julian date) and brewed in Chicago (the 2 after the 1). I believe a 1 after the year would mean the California brewery. The stuff after the first 5 numbers identifies the specific time and batch.

 

It's both funny and annoying how breweries put obstacles in front of us trying to figure out when they brewed their beer. "Well, we DO date our beer!" (Even though you have to do research on how to read said date).

I used mine and it said "Be sure to drink your Lil Sumpin Sumpin"

 

But "Day of the Year" (typically but technically incorrectly often referred to as "Julian" ) dating is common - I've worked for at least 3 Fortune 500 companies that used it and the cheap calendars I buy every year for computer desk and the side of the refrigerator list it, like this snip from last year's version.

It also avoids the confusion of European day/month vs US month/day methods.

My complaints (as noted by others above) with Lagunitas has always been legibility on the bottles and the fact that the dates tend to be many months in the past. I don't recall ever finding dating on the cans' 6 or 12 pack cartons, but I might have just given up on the brewery for that and a few other reasons.

 

Did they change their dating system? I no longer see julian codes. It looks like the beginning of the second line is the actual bottle date... (10/04/22)

 

Interesting. I will have to take a look next time I'm at the store. The top line appears to have the same date in Julian type format (BYDDD = B2277 = Oct 04 2022). Date code redundancy in case one of the lines smears off?
They used to have a 1 or a 2 present to indicate Petaluma or Chicago, respectively. Maybe it's now an A or B to indicate this?

 

I think you're right on the money. On the east coast, we only get Chicago brewed stuff AFAIK.

Trying one now, and it definitely tastes 1 month old. Pretty damn good.