Question of Sanitation and old labels

[Bartman]

Super Bowl party turned into homebrew taste fest. Two other brewers brought samples and they both bottled with old Sam Adams beer labels still on the bottles. Is that sanitary? Seems like old dirty faded labels might harbor bad stuff that might get on bottling equipment and caps. Any thoughts?

 

[Yooper]

It'd be fine. I mean, the labels are on the outside, right? And the beer is on the inside, where it's clean and sanitized. Any yeast or bacteria on the outside can't make it inside to spoil the beer. Think of all the beer you can buy as "singles" in the beer store. No telling how many hands have touched them, but the beer inside is fine!