Shipyard Brewery...you're dead to me

Since I have recently started brewing my wife knows there are only two rules when picking up beer;
1. bottles
2. no twist offs

Shipyard had to go and bottle twist offs, with no indicator of being a twist off.

Seriously? Being in a twist off (or a can) is never a reason to shun a brewery. Making ****ty beer... now that's a reason to shun a brewery.

I complain about everything, so its weird for me to ask... did I miss something?

it's minor, wife stopped for beer on her way home from work. Picked up a sixer of Shipyard Pumpkin (I know it's still too early in the season). She was careful to check if it was a twist off. Nothing on the cap signaled it was a twist off. Popped one open and the first thing I see is that it is a twist off. I haven't had to recycle a bottle all summer.

Maybe they screwed up and got the wrong bottles. It happened to DFH. I have a bottle of their pumpkin ill have to check it out.

Knecht_Rupprecht said:

it's minor

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If it's minor, then why are they dead to you? Based on the tone of your initial post, it sounded like you thought you were too good for twist offs.

Nothing wrong with twist offs. If you are hard up for bottles go to a bar and get five or ten cases of them for free.

I don't buy any commercial beer that is in twist-off bottles.
It seems a lot of companies are going the stealth twist-off route.

Different strokes for different folks, I guess, but this is just such a foreign concept to me. If your favorite beer in the whole world suddenly became available only in twist offs, would you stop buying it just because it was in a twist off?

Well now, you WERE waiting for an excuse to buy a bench capper, weren't you?

I just tried their smashed pumpkin and blueberry, I liked the blueberry better. I had their xxxxipa, that was quite good! Always liked shipyard.

lowlife said:

Nothing wrong with twist offs. If you are had up for bottles go to a bar and five or ten cases of them for free.

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Many people on here including myself have used twist off bottles to bottle homebrew with no problems.
But you haft to re-use the screw on caps, Take a twist off bottle and fill it full of water then screw a twist off cap back on it
then turn it upside down, Does it leak???

If it don't leak it will work just fine for bottling homebrew NO CAPPER NEEDED.

I never liked shipyards beer. Smutty is a better local brew.

Not to good for twist offs buys as someone new to brewing I have been looking to build up my empty bottles. I was upset that they weren't labeled as twist offs. Those that were thrown by "you're dead to me", sorry if it seemed too extreme. I was asking about bottles, I figured readers would realize that the over the top statement was for literary purposes.

I'm drinking Grolsh right now just because i want the flip top bottles, it's cheaper to buy the bottles full of beer than to buy just the flip top bottles So I feel ya bro!

You're going to be in trouble when breweries start going the can route! The can is coming back you know. Better tell the wife to get you a keg starter kit. that's what I did.

iskuse said:

Better tell the wife to get you a keg starter kit. that's what I did.

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I tried, she said I need to make better beer first.

Knecht_Rupprecht said:

Not to good for twist offs buys as someone new to brewing I have been looking to build up my empty bottles. I was upset that they weren't labeled as twist offs. Those that were thrown by "you're dead to me", sorry if it seemed too extreme. I was asking about bottles, I figured readers would realize that the over the top statement was for literary purposes.

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No worries, I felt the exact same way until I had saved up a bunch of empties. Ask around at work...I had lots of people save me their bottles in exchange for a six pack. My boss even delabled them!

I've heard you can use twist offs, but when I tried it the threads chipped and I don't think I want to be drinking tiny pieces of glass.

What is stealth threads? It's pretty easy to tell if caps are twist off.

Reminds me that I bought a Monster M3 the other day because I wanted to reuse the bottles, and I found out it was a twist off. Went to a convenience store and noticed that about half the bottles were twist off, the others were pry off. Apparently Monster is wanting to lose my business. The only reason I bought that stuff was for the tiny bottles!

Knecht_Rupprecht said:

I tried, she said I need to make better beer first.

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The important thing here, is that she didn't say no!

Too bad your not close to PA, I have a ton of bottles in my garage I could give you. I went to kegs this spring. Went out to the garage and noticed a stange smell. started moving stuff around and noticed it was coming from my milkcrates of bottles. about 7 Mice crawled in the bottles during winter and died. I threw out 250 some bottles because I could never use them again. I wouldn't be able to drink the beer from them. Bottles are easy to come by once you let people know you are looking for them. I probably have another 100 gathering dust. I didn't have the heart to tell the people bringing bottles that I didnt want them anymore.

When I started brewing I went hog wild brewing a batch almost every week. So I was forced to use some twist off bottles. Some of them were flat when opened. All of them were tested for leaks at bottling time. I used a bench capper and new caps (regular caps). Just because a capped bottle holds a still liquid does not mean it will hold back back the forces of bottle carbonation. Granted it most likely user error with the capper.

I got the initial humor from the thread. I sorta feel the same way. Im not going to buy a bottle of beer that I cannot recycle into my own bottles for beer. Just makes more sense. So a ban or banish that company. Kinda like Bluepoint Brewery on Long Island. I think the beer is GREAT. But the bottles stink. Ill buy a 6 of SA because of the bottles. (plus the beer is good)

nukebrewer said:

Seriously? Being in a twist off (or a can) is never a reason to shun a brewery. Making ****ty beer... now that's a reason to shun a brewery.

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Shipyard is dead to me, because of ****ty beer....seems like everything i've had of their tasted like buttery diacetyl crap....IT was a Sampler with an IPA (which was just Ok, hops masked most of the diacetyl) Pale Ale, terrible, Old Thumper, terrible, and something else...I was not impressed

I have a hard time buying twist offs and even more so cans but I would say you better get use to the idea of cans they sure seem to be taking more and more of a foot hold in the craft.

I like to reuse the bottles too. I must say though, I just tried the Shipyard pumpkin and it was awful.

nukebrewer said:

If your favorite beer in the whole world suddenly became available only in twist offs, would you stop buying it just because it was in a twist off?

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Yes

It is probably just a screw (ha) up. I bought a 6 of local brew (Sweetwater IPA) and it was in twist offs. I called the brewery and they flipped out. Said they would never go to twist offs and it had to have been a slip up by the supplier. They offered me a free case if I brought the bottles to them but I had already recycled them. Have never had a twist off from them before or since.

I stick with 22oz bottles and don't worry about twist off.

I remember going through that phase when I was after bottles. Now I have several hundred bottles with no room for them. I bet if you contacted a local brew club you could get other brewers' excess empties and have more bottles than you will ever need.

The OP is missing out on the greatness that is Oskar Blues brewery, as they can all of their beer. The trend is certainly to can everything, so maybe in a few years the OP won't have anything to drink at all. Poor OP!

Subsailor said:

I stick with 22oz bottles and don't worry about twist off.

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Bombers are a win win. Faster to bottle, and easier to store... and 2 bombers sounds better to say you drank instead of 4 beers, lol.

TopherM said:

The OP is missing out on the greatness that is Oskar Blues brewery, as they can all of their beer. The trend is certainly to can everything, so maybe in a few years the OP won't have anything to drink at all. Poor OP!

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Topher - certainly know Oscar Blues well and have spent many a night at the pub. That said I probably won't have a Dale's (outside of a bar/restaurant) the net few weeks.

nukebrewer said:

. If your favorite beer in the whole world suddenly became available only in twist offs, would you stop buying it just because it was in a twist off?

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My favorite commercial beer only comes in green bottles in the US, so I started the work on cloning it a long time ago. You know, BREWING beer.

amandabab said:

My favorite commercial beer only comes in green bottles, so I started the work on cloning it a long time ago. You know, BREWING beer.

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Your favorite commercial beer is Heineken?

Seriously, though, you completely missed the point. I'm done here.

What about something in a corked 750? I'd sure love it if my significant other came home and surprised me with a bottle from Boulevard's Smokestack series.

phenry said:

What about something in a corked 750? I'd sure love it if my significant other came home and surprised me with a bottle from Boulevard's Smokestack series.

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Corkables always have a place in the rotation

phenry said:

What about something in a corked 750? I'd sure love it if my significant other came home and surprised me with a bottle from Boulevard's Smokestack series.

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I'm pretty sure my wide won't bring home a corked bottle expecting it to be a capped bottle.

"Stealth twist-off"? You're kidding right? I can tell a twist off cap half way across the room. The tell-tale signs of the threads give it away. Now if it was the SWMBO or the g/f that picked them up, that's a valid excuse.

Otherwise, shame on you!

Not the best pic, but an example of what to look for... You can see the thread through the cap metal. (Right and slightly lower of the "twist off" words)

MC

when all breweries used big cap torquers like a turbofil, those marks were a dead givaway. Now a lot of small breweries are using cheaper equipment like a pneumatic Jetflow or crowner turret to press caps onto screw top bottles with no thread indents.

I have several cases of Shipyard pry-off bottles. They changed to twist-offs a few years ago. I wonder why?