British freshness dating

[newportstorm]

This may have been discussed before, so bear with me. In the States we have no formal, universal dating system for our beer's freshness but I understand other beer-loving countries do.

I recently spied some St. Peter's Old Style Porter & Cream Stout at the local store and am interested in picking some up. However, I notice a four digit number on the back. Can anyone tell me how to read this properly. Is it Julian, as in the first digit is the year and the last three are the day of the year? And is this date a bottled-on date or a recommended best-before date? Thanks for any help you guys can give.

Cheers!

[chris_o]

This prompted me to take a look at some bottles of St Peters that I have. Nice and straightforward on the British bottles - "10 Jan2004". Whoops. Anyway, the porter still tasted fine. Can't help with deciphering the four digit number. Strange if they do it differently for export.