tkm

Recipes 

How necessary are champagne style cork and cage bottles for bottling sour beers? Can I get by with regular crown cap bottles, does anybody have any experience with failures?

avidhomebrewer

Recipes 

I've made a few sours over the years and have only used regular crown caps. For a true lambic, I would think a cork would add additional flavors, but I haven't bothered with that.

passedpawn

Recipes 

Crown cap works fine. But if you can get a corker, definitely do that. Opening a sour beer with a cork would be cool.

__________________
Now there's some take delight in the carriages a rolling
and others take delight in the hurling and the bowling
but I take delight in the juice of the barley
and courting pretty fair maids in the morning bright and early

ReverseApacheMaster

Recipes 

As long as the beer is fairly stable you shouldn't have a concern. Using thicker bottles is always a smart precaution just in case. Weizen bottles, stubby Belgian bottles and some champagne bottles can be capped but are thick walled. I use the Belgian 750ml and other champagne bottles but I don't cork with regular corks. I use plastic champagne corks. It's not as nice looking and it's an imperfect solution for the Belgian bottles but it's dirt cheap and works. Some Belgian bottles have too large of mouths and it won't get a good seal but I've had good success with Chimay and Ommegang bottles. I seem to think Unibroue bottles were too wide-mouthed.

Calder

Recipes 

Standard bottles are fine. Just don't carbonate over 3 volumes.

The corked bottles are thicker glass and can withstand higher pressure (more volumes of CO2).