dtfeld

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I want to ship my brother a batch of beer I brewed up for him. Unfortunately he live several states away. Whats the best way to economically ship him a batch?

Obviously 12 or 22 oz bottles are easy to fill and cap, but breakage becomes a problem. I bought some "resealable aluminum bottles" at the store the other day for pool beer and to see if repurposing them might work (I'll let you know the outcome). The other is PET bottles available mailorder.

What about filling and boxing up a corny or two? All ideas and experience welcome.

rwinzing

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It is against the law to ship beer through USPS it is a govt. agency and you could get in trouble. You can ship through FedEx or UPS but you need to declare what you are shipping and the person getting it needs to be 21. You can try and do it without them knowing (I have done this quite a few times) but understand if they figure it out they will keep it.

I never tried to ship an entire batch but I have shipped 12 bombers before. You need to bubble wrap them and put a tone of packing in the box. It is going to be heavy and expensive. That most likely will be the best way to go.

Hope this helps

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COLObrewer

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I like the corner idea, especially if you carb them up. The mail carriers will shake it up for you and get the carb into solution while in transit, he can chill and serve when it gets there.

Other than that I would say ROAD TRIP! It's probably the cheapest.

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bwarbiany

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I'd be concerned about the corny, for the mere fact that if you're not *1000%* sure that it will hold pressure and not leak when you *don't* have CO2 connected and no pressure on it, you don't want to find out the hard way. It certainly won't be shipped upright at all times, I'll tell you that (as a guy who spent a summer loading trucks as a night job for UPS back in college).

I recommend going out and buying the styrofoam shipping containers for wine, along with the matching-size box. You can fit 12 bombers in there no problem, and it's about as gentle of a method as you'll come across.

mendesm

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It is not against the law to ship "yeast samples/cultures" through USPS, which is exactly what beer is, and of course you're going to label it as such

dtfeld

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I was going to build a plywood box and foam in a liner for the korny...I figure it would weigh 70 or 80 lbs...

bschot

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The plywood box sounds like a good idea. Although the shipping charges could be monumental. I would line it with a garbage bag in case of any breakage. Just mark it live yeast samples. And if possible wait till cooler weather, beer sitting on a hot truck for hours makes me cringe.

AZ_IPA

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Shipping any alcohol via USPS is illegal, regardless of what you call/label it.

They are looking at changing that, though.

mendesm

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It's not illegal to ship yeast samples/cultures. Alcohol production just happens to be something the yeast produces while is being shipped. It's done all the time. Look it up.

Put the beer in a box, properly packed, weigh it, pay online, print the label bring it to the nearest USPS store, and it to them, and if they ask you "will that be it today?" just answer yes and walk away. No bending of any truths are required.

JRems

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really? I ordered vanilla extract from amazon and it was shipped usps. The main ingredient is alcohol.

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