I am totally chilled,and Im not even remotely upset,being a beverage man is a lifestyle not a job,I know what my brethern do and have to put up with,and they go out and do it and do it again,it is our goal to bring the best products to every home,my job in all honesty,is to make sure my products go home,that my brand is in every shopping cart,its aggressive by nature.

A recent beer commercial boasted the fact that their product will always have the "born on date" clearly posted.

Greg, I agree,an uniformed labeling system would help the consumer,I myself have bought a 12 pack with a leaker and it upset me,but I know these things happen,so on my next visit to the market,I took the empty can and it was replaced.

I agree totally. I haven't bought a Jolt cola in a couple of years because they are almost always flat as a pancake. Nothing worse than a flat soda. I do like Jolt, too but just can't stand flat soda.

I had the WORST Boylans ever from Jungle Jims.

2 years old, I'm guessing.

(The RC and Classic were good, though)

Too bad, Boylan's is often top notch. But, age & poor storage will get to sodas.

pepsi and coke are easy. 7up takes some work, and maybe German to figure out.

I know most beer codes by the back of my hand.

Heineken uses Julian.

Warsteiner clearly dates their product.

A-B uses born on.

Miller/Pabst/Stroh/Pete's Wicked use a five digit system - mmddY : Today's date - 06225

Labatt/Molson use a letter (month)/number (Day, year)combo

- Molson, Foster's, Asahi: F2205

- Labatt: F22 - there's year coding, but i forget.

i'll find more.

7up uses an A-L and a M-X,A or M would be january,L or X Would be December,and the # would be the days of the year preceded by the year,example,E5151,E would = the 5th mo.,5 would = the year2005,151 ould = the 151st. day of the year,the rest is where its bottled,but honestly,freshness is paramont to any brand,pride,integrity,honesty,commitment.

Every year I have an obscure soda tasting in January, which is a little hard because a fair number of what I like to pick up is a promotion, limited time, or special edition. Through this I have noticed that there seems to be a difference between how long cans. plastic bottles, screw of glass bottles, and bottle opener glass bottles are good for. Am I making this up? Also how do you translate expiration date codes?

Usually plastic, no matter if it's diet or normal sodas, are given a 3 month shelf life. Cans, for HFCS/sugar, it's usually 9 months. Anything with aspartame (Nutrasweet) in it, is 3 months regardless of the container. Not sure if there's a standard for sucralose, although Pepsi gives Pepsi One a 6 month lifespan. Glass, well glass has become uncommon enough that I don't know if there's any set standards anymore. Back when I used to buy Pepsi in NR and returnable glass, it was 9 months, but the product would actually stay OK for months after that, provided you didn't store in direct sunlight.

I remember posting an expiration date on some Frostie Root Beer that I found amazing once, looking back at that post, it was like 78 weeks from bottling til expiration! Never found out the reasoning why - maybe it's the amber-tinted glass it was in or something.

( http://www.bevnet.com/bevboard/bevbo...xpiration.html )
-Andy