Bell’s Brewing will start adding dates to their bottles this month. It’s not earth shattering news, as much as it is interesting. Currently, every bottle of Bell’s has a batch number that you can enter on their website and find out when the beer was brewed. This new system will still contain the batch code, plus a “shelf life” code. Speculation: Bell’s will issue a code chart corresponding to a suggested shelf life/cellar life. Bells:
Bell’s Brewery is proud to announce that we will begin printing packaging date information directly onto the labels of our beers in late April 2011. We have installed the necessary high-speed printing equipment and are currently fine-tuning the system and conducting final validation checks. This is a step that has been on our minds for some time now, and we are looking forward to having it fully operational soon.
We’ve elected to go with the actual date of packaging rather than a “best before” date.
Brilliant!
I wish more breweries would do stuff like this. It takes the guesswork out of cellaring for idiots like me.
I like knowing what the brewer thinks about keeping the beer long term. I’ve had some real let downs…