I like looking at the bottom of a can and at least seeing a bunch of meaningless numbers and letters but I feel like more than half of the cans I check out are a blurry mess. What is the deal?
I can’t throw anyone under the buss it’s more general than that. I buy beer throughout vt ma and nh and I see it all over. There’s just a lot of lot coder calibration problems going on. Not a big deal it just almost seems like they’re intentionally obscuring lot information after awhile.
I don't think its intentional, I think it has to do with the inking machine and its not hitting the cans correctly, more of a calibration issue. I see this a lot and remember someone mentioning this. Cheers
From my experience in the wire industry, date coders are extremely temperamental. They may not know they have an issue until most of the run is done. And I can’t imagine them throwing away or recanning beer (if that’s even possible) to get a legible date.
Most breweries don't seem committed to deploying a legible or easily understood date. I wonder why some even bother. Some brewers use date code printers that are extremely readable, printed black on white and in a well understood date format. Those breweries are the exception. There is no requirement to date so if a brewery puts a date on it's either for their own use in tracking bad batches or getting old beer off shelves. They're not generally dating the beer for the consumer, and often use real esoteric coding, though some may date because some consumers won't buy undated beer. I like the "fortune cookies" that Oskar Blues prints on the bottom of their cans, though they're often smeared or jumbled.
I know the manager at Blackberry Farm Brewery and I asked him about his date codes sucking the other day. I worked for PepsiCo for a few years as a maintenance tech and I have felt with their InkJet systems quiet a bit. There they run a steady 1500 cans a minute out of the filler. And it’s easy to predict and build around this. BBF’s said the can flow is so unpredictable stop/go that it’s hard to set up a InkJet to print reliable. I suggested an old fashioned stamp on a wheel. I mean hey it works!
Bearded Iris and Southern Grist do this as well. I’m drinking a BI that says “ I’m a hippo large and wet” lol
Actually I do think it is intentional. The deal is simple! It's information that the brewer can understand but NOT the consumer! Information such as batch codes, time stamps ect..... all coded in a way that a brewer can break down but far from the realm of understanding for a consumer.
There is definitely some truth to that. Internal tracking that's useful but doesn't deter a customer because they think "Geez, this is a month old, I'll pass." It keeps traceability up while not forgoing sales.
