Bottling dates of Westvleteren beers?

Regional Forums België-Belgique
1

When searching for how to figure out when Westvleteren beers were bottled based on the best before date printed on the cap I’m finding a lot of conflicting information. There’s quite a few very old forum threads from here and BA, as well as random beer blogs that seem to be quoting that same information. As there’s no info on their own website about it I thought it’d be good to have a more recent thread.

For 12 I’ve read that it’s either 5 years or 3 years prior to the date on the cap
For 8 - either 3 or 2 years
For Blond - either 3, 2 or just 1 year

Not sure where people got these different figures from, it seems logical that all three beers would have 3 year dates on but it would be nice to know for sure. Can anyone confirm?

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I’ve only ever heard of the 3 years, but that doesn’t mean all that much.

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Yeah 3 years was the most common date I read so it’s what I’m assuming until I hear any different.

4

I bought bottles at the brewery in ~2001 and it was 3 years for the 8 and the 12, 1 year for the Blonde.
Later in 2011/2012 it was still the same for the 12 and Blonde, can’t say for the 8.

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My experience has been that its been 3 years (this was bottles picked up at the gift shop). Also I just drank my last 8 from six years ago, and it held up really, really well…