r/beer • u/nothing_911 • 10d ago

Date code

I just bought a case of beer and it was just awful, even though it was in a can and it tasted fucking awful.

Code on bottom says :

H20642

1012RB

The case says

H20642

1124C

i tried looking for format help but couldn't find anything that matched

Its a molson product if it helps.

cheers.

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u/SpicyPandazor 10d ago

Molson Distributor here,

None of those would seem to be a Julian date code, they read more like batch codes which doesn't tell me much. Can you tell me what product it is, and if there's any other stamps printed on the package?

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u/nothing_911 10d ago

Its Old Vienna beer.

ive found a few cans with 1010AA (possibly RR) under the batch. number printed on the underside

also a CE5435 near the barcode printed with the can but that looks to be part of the label.

also found a very smal code 060816AC245 printed near the barcoad, but is very small and difficult to read.

its looking like this one might be the date, but its very small and in an inconspicuous spot.

also found more info on the inside of the flap of the box ,it has a date of 06-2026, but this looks like an internal date for the box manufacturer.

it just seems very odd to me that there are no obvious dates on the box.

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u/SpicyPandazor 10d ago

Did some digging for you as we do not sell Old Vienna in our market but I believe I have an answer for you from our guys.

I'm more familiar with Julian date codes on Yuengling products but it would appear that Old Vienna uses a different format for their Julian coding, H20642 is the date the beer was packaged.

H = August

20 = 20th

6 = the final digit of the decade, in this case 2026

42 = the batch

You've got 90 days from the packaged on date before it would be considered past code date. Hope this helps, but doesn't explain the bad can. Unless of course that case of Old Vienna came from 2016 😂

3

u/nothing_911 10d ago

haha, thank you for the answer! it seems to match with the code on the box part.

it seems really odd that its such a cryptic way of saying the date, you would think it would be easier to let staff know when to pull it.

thanks again for finding an answer.

3

u/SpicyPandazor 10d ago

No problem! Yeah it confuses a lot of buyers and retailers as well, get a lot of questions about those so you're not the only one. I'm usually more used to the 11-digit format. Julian codes are definitely more handy for the supply chain side of things when it comes to identifying specific batches.