beer me
Another reason to love the Wall Street Journal: on Saturday, they published an expose on 'cracking the beer codes.'
More specifically the piece gave analysis of 18 popular beers and how to read their labels to tell just how old your beer is.
Right now, I'm drinking a Beck's and by looking at the label, I have absolutely no idea when this brew was made or when it is set to expire. But, if I were drinking a Foster's Lager, I would know now that, for example, if the label had 'E 25 5 23' printed on it, that would tell me that the 'E' represents the month, (May) '25' the day, and '5' the year (2005) my Foster's was brewed and put in the bottle.
Or if I were drinking a Bass Ale, one of my favorites. Just a few days ago, '23 K 5 4sx' would have meant nothing to me whatsoever. Now, however, I can tell you, my beer swilling buddies, that the '23' represents the day, the 'K' stands for the month, (October) and '5' is the year.
Oddly, Coors Light is the only beer in the sample that puts a date right on the label, 'Jan 01 06,' which is the beer's expiration date--112 days after manufacture.
See the handy chart on the left included for your enjoyment? You're welcome. Just click to enlarge it.
posted by Kent at 10:53 PM
4 Comments:
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Fascinating subject. I find that most green bottled beers are skunked upon arrival. For this reason I steer clear of Heineken (which is almost always skunked by the time it gets here yet people think it's supposed to taste like that). Rolling rock is of suspect freshness as is Carlsberg, Beck's or basically any other green bottle beer. For whatever reason European beers are often skunked. From sitting in where houses to sitting on backs of trucks than sitting in the liquor store entirely too much time has passed from the time the beer is created until the moment it is consumed. I would recommend staying away from any imported European beer. Amstel Light is almost always horribly skunked yet somehow has worked its way into a niche market. (I know girls who won't drink any other beer.) Things like Corona and Foster's and Bass Ale are usually all right in terms of freshness by the time they get here to Boston. Speaking of Boston, we happen to create two of the best beers available on the face of the earth. Harpoon I.P.A. is an excellent beer as is Sam Adams Lager. Both brewed right here in the city so basically it doesn’t get any fresher than that. Now, most canned beers avoid the whole skunking pitfall although I have a problem with Coors Light in the can. I used to love the Silver Bullet during a football game or whatever but it seemed that every other 30 rack I got was skunked. The more tasteless the beer, the harder to tell the skunk level. A beer like Coors Light is best when it has almost no taste. Ideally it's clean, crisp, and refreshing like cold spring water. If there's too many things happening on one’s pallet while imbibing a Coor's Light there's a good bet that the beer is one of the 50 percent or so that got skunked/stale somehow. Bud Light is always fresh as is the new and excellent Budweiser Select. As it says on the can Bud Select "...with a bold taste that finishes clean". That whole finishing clean is so important. Good American beer like Budweiser should have essentially no after taste. For a cheaper alternative to Bud Light one can select Bush Light, which is made by the same company (probably in the same vats) and tastes almost identical. So ends my beer pontification. BTW, Alito was just confirmed Cheers!
Actually, Heineken is not a German beer, so they can use hops stabilizers and what not to achieve freshness. You could also compare a canned Heineken with a bottled one. Canned beer is not exposed to light, so should taste better. Heineken sucks in general though and gives me a tummy ache.
I sometimes drink Budweiser here in Taiwan (and it's now all made in China) and don't like it. Then I had a Budweiser in Macau that was made in the USA and had some dates on it and some marketing stuff about drinking it within 110 days of production. Well, it tasted really good. Really, really good. I was suprised.
Also, get Fosters in brown bottles in Taiwan that taste horrendous. Must just be the beer. :-) I was importing microbrews to Taiwan for a while, and the quality of the beer would fall off after some time, mainly due to capping issues...better capping can keep beer fresh a long time. In fact North Coast Brewing's beer is still highly drinkable after 2 years of sitting around unrefrigerated (and unpasteurized!) They had by the far the best evacuation and capping and quality control. Some of the other brewers would actually lose carbonation in just a few months.
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