I have been railing about bottled on / canned on dating for a while on this blog. Doesn’t have to be for all beers (though that would be grand), start at least with IPA’s and lighter ABV beers that will run into freshness issues first.
But these dates can be anywhere and nowhere making the consumer have to search high and low for them, only to learn that it was probably on the case and not the individual bottle.
I recently ran across this helpful blog post though, that has compiled an alphabetical listing of where to look for the date. Look for those breweries that are distributed in your area and see if it helps.