Any place to get free bottles?

Where do you guys get your bottles from? I am currently brewing my first beer, a hefeweizen. I'm still about 9 or 10 days away from bottling, but am trying to collect enough bottles for it. I have about 25 now. The local brew shop wants $16 for 18 bottles. Wow. For that price, I just pay a few extra bucks and get some Sam Adams or something. All of my friends and co-workers drink from cans or drink Alaskan Amber (twist off). Just curious if anybody has any ideas on where I could get a lot of bottles for free or real cheap?

Stop by a bar and ask if you can have their empties? Or dumpster dive outside their place on Sunday morning?

Personally I get all of my bottles for free. Whenever I pick up a sixer of Fat Tire it comes with 6 bottles that are perfect for homebrew.

Beyond that, I've heard of people having good luck getting free bottles from making friends with bar owners and scouring Craigslist. Dunno how effective those would be up in AK though.

2 liter bottles.

I've also heard of people hitting up their local recycling centers

whatisitgoodfor said:

Personally I get all of my bottles for free. Whenever I pick up a sixer of Fat Tire it comes with 6 bottles that are perfect for homebrew.

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this is true unless you live in Hawaii, California, Michigan or one of the other bottle deposit states. I happen to pay $0.06 for every bottle.

I have an unlimited supply in the brown bottle dumpster at the landfill.

You look like a bum, and it may be illegal in some places, but look through recycling bins (especially at apartment complexes). Or you can go to a bar and ask the owner if you can go through their bottles. I bet one trip would supply you with enough bottles for a whole batch. Do wear gloves when you dig around though. Nothing worse than slicing your hand to the bone and getting a nasty infection from rotting beer.

I got very lucky on Craigslist one day, but I don't expect that to happen again. Tell your friends to help a brother out for a week and drink something else.

Also check out venues that host wedding receptions or other similar parties. A lot of places pour the beer into glasses-- so no worries with dirty, random lips all over the bottles

I'm a wedding photog and just picked up enough bottles last Friday at a reception for my IIPA (in primary right now) :rockin:

I'll admit, I was a tad hesitant at first to ask but I figured, why not?! And it took a couple seconds to explain WHY I wanted the bottles, haha. But she was great, she double garbage bagged all of the bottles throughout the night for me. I probably looked pretty crazy walking out with a clanking garbage bag

I just go to a local bar and tell them that I brew beer and would they mind if I took some empty bottles. The place I went to didnt mind but maybe some other places arent as nice.

A friend mine got a chic at a bar to stick a red stripe bottle in her vagina, the importance of sanitation for bar bottles can not be emphasized enough.

It seems at first that accumulating bottles is difficult but if you drink micros you will accumulate them really quickly. Also if you mention around to people that you brew and need crown bottles they will start showing up. There's also craigslist, and freecycle.org, hooking up with other homebrewers, recycling centers. Asking at beerstores that have a good selection of beer for their returnables.

It seems daunting but you'll get plenty really fast.

We have a $0.10 deposit on bottles here. I was lucky ehough to talk the owner of a local grocery store I frequent to allow me to grab their returned bottles for the cost of the deposit money. Ten cents a bottle and a little elbow grease beats $14 a case at the LBHS.

Thats exactly what I was going to suggest, nice work. I was also going to suggest buying a few cases of nice beer and trying to make some converts out of your friends and co-workers.

Not to thread jack, but on the same topic: How do you go about cleaning them.

The only reason I have hesitated from getting bottles from a bar, is how gross they can be.

People downplay bleach solutions. But soak those nasty unknown bar bottles in it for a day to two and rinse thoroughly, that will kill pretty much anything that bar mouths carry

Also, back on thread... For storage, if my friends buy six-packs (screw-off or crown), they save holders for me. My local liquor store gladly donates the boxes that conveniently store for 6-pack holders. Easy storage and free!!!

Also, I just asked my friends to save any crown-type bottles in return for free samples of my beer. They gladly offer up bottles.

A local (close to Boston) liquor store is currently selling Victory Baltic Porter for $.99c/bottle, $10.99/case.
The drink-by date is January 2009.
I've been drinking the beer, but if you don't want to...great price for a case of bombers for homebrew.
PM me for details.

I think people will probably say Oxiclean Free for old/dirty bottles. Worked great for me!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000PDWB6I/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20
I got 2 packs of these, 16 1 liter bottles with caps for $29.98 shipped free.

I got a few cases of new bottles from the LHBS, but I've also been saving up bottles. I needed a bunch of 12 ouncers for holiday brews, so around late October I just asked a couple of friends that I knew drank beer from good bottle to save their bottles for me.

KC10Chief said:

Where do you guys get your bottles from? I am currently brewing my first beer, a hefeweizen. I'm still about 9 or 10 days away from bottling, but am trying to collect enough bottles for it. I have about 25 now. The local brew shop wants $16 for 18 bottles. Wow. For that price, I just pay a few extra bucks and get some Sam Adams or something. All of my friends and co-workers drink from cans or drink Alaskan Amber (twist off). Just curious if anybody has any ideas on where I could get a lot of bottles for free or real cheap?

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I just bought 6 cases of Brava (clear pop off). I figured I could pay $1.25 per bottle at the home brew shop or pay $2 less per 24, and actually get beer with it!

So depending how you look at it, my 144 bottles were free. It's beer I would have bought in between batches anyway IMO.

If you live need a bottle recycler they often have bottles that they will let go for cheap, probably not free though. When I lived in Alberta I got a bunch of "pint" sized green bottles with the resealable rubber cork on the metal hinge (cant think of what there called) for $0.20 each at the bottle recycler. A bargain considering the brew shop wants $3.50 for the exact same bottle.

Hey Chief if you want some i could spare a few, especially if you just starting off. I’m on the South Side off O’Malley.

Ever since they took out the glass recycling in town Craigslist has been a great place to get bottles. Just put a wanted ad.

I sent you a PM

It is amazing what you can find if you try.
My son and I brew together regularly since 09/09, me not brewing for about 10 years, and him eager to try it.
Over the past past six month's we have ramped up our equipment and are now making all-grain brews.
Our biggest score has been being able to get abour 14 cases of 16 oz. returnable bottles from our local beer store @ $1.50 case or free since the brewery that was supplying them decided to get out of the returnable end of the business.
Sure beats the $15.00 case LHBS new bottle price:rockin:

Johnny_Crunch said:

A friend mine got a chic at a bar to stick a red stripe bottle in her vagina, the importance of sanitation for bar bottles can not be emphasized enough.

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OK, my next batch will be called Red Striped Vagina Ale!:fro: Ya mon!

I have about 18 cases of the old returnable bottles with the cases. I got most of them through my local liquor store. People find them stuffed in the back of the garage and bring them back for the deposit.

The store will pay the deposit of a buck or two for PR reasons. They don't want to be viewed as a store that ripped off their customers by keeping the deposit. This, even if deposits are a thing of the long past and they may not even have purchased the beer from them.

The store then throws them out as the distributor no longer wants them. So I talked to the folks at the store and they kept them for me and I picked them up the next time I came in.

Some were pretty nasty but they worked fine throughout my bottling career.

i get all the free beer and wine bottles for free from work.
we host alot of receptions and parties, so on a good night i can come home with 100 fat tire bottles :rockin:

I just talked with my local micro brew pub and the folks there hooked me up. Virgin bottles for .25 each, great deal. Clean new bottles ready for sanitation. My advice, just ask your local micro joint.

I'm lucky enough to have a brother who has worked at multiple bars in our town. Through him I've gotten about 8 cases of bottles free from one of the bars.

We go through them first and leave any bottles that have fruit or smokes left inside of them. I make sure to clean them really good.

Just ask around. Some people might be nice enough to let you have them especially if you offer to throw them a little bit of cash.

Like others, I've had good luck with bars. They just toss them anyway and don't mind giving them away. Look for the pop tops though. I Have found twist offs are sometines a little thin and can break when capping.

Apparently you people just don't drink enough! I know I should be drinking HBs exclusively, but somehow I don't think that's the norm. I still need my Stone beers! If you save your own bottles, you should have plenty (unless you're selling your beers!).

I have spent 60 dollars on new bottles. That is two cases of 12oz and two cases of 22oz. I have drank another two cases but I still need bottles. So I'm also gonna try this bar thing.

The easiest way is to just tell your friends that might drink good beer to save their bottles. I got enough flip top (gasket sealed) bottles to do at least a case that way...and I'm not talking grosch either I'm talking big bottles Makes bottling day easier. Of course they will expect to get some brew now and then as part of the deal. You can also check your local bars etc.

I'm going to talk to the manager of my local grocery store who I know rather well and ask if I can buy the microbrew bottles off of them for twice the deposit cost (NY .05). So 2.40 a case instead of buying from my LHBS.

I'm also going to ask my boss if I can post a notice at work offering to buy cases of pop top beer bottles at double redemption value as well.

That should keep me in bottles for a while, but I do want to buy some 32 oz Grolsch style bottles.

I have a friend at work that drinks craft beer. I tell him to save the bottles. Every month or so I get a case of bottles.