Beer with most easily removed labels

So, you're not ready to keg yet? Still rocking brown glass? You know you're gonna drink the beer anyway; so it might as well be good beer and the labels might as well magically disolve right before your eyes. So what do you get? Here's what I've found with recent brands...

TLDR; buy Southern Tier and Bells. Soak in very hot water.

* Souther Tier: BUY IT... the beer F-ing rocks, and *both* their 22s and 12s use a very water friendly adhesive. The 22s have plastic labels that peel off easily leaving a cob-webby adhesive that you can easily remove with your fingers. The 12oz bottles have paper labels, but don't bother peeling them off. Soak in very hot water for about 5 or 10 minutes and the labels almost fall off.

* Bells: beer is great, and the labels peel off easily in hot water. They leave lines of adhesive on the bottle, but this can be scraped off easily with fingernails or a knife. After scraping, return to hot water to soak; remove and rescrape until most of it comes off. Then lightly scrub with hot soapy water to remove anything that's left.

* Rush River (WI): labels literally fall off after 10 minutes in hot water. Beer is pretty good too.

* Steel Toe Brewing (MN): plastic labels like Souther Tier's, come off fairly easily in very hot water, but may require cleanup with Acetone. But hey, they're 22s so you don't have to clean as many!

* Ninkasi: beer is excellent; paper labels can be scraped off with a kitchen knife after 15 minutes in hot water. You'll do a bunch of scraping to get the paper off but paper doesn't have feelings so don't worry about it. Return to hot water to loosen the remaining adhesive, then use your fingernails to scrape it off, and finally lightly scrub with hot soapy water.

* Widmer: good beer, labels like Ninkasi.

* Deschutes: great beer, labels like Ninkas and Widmer

* Southern Oregon Brewing: plastic labels that peel off easily and use water-friendly adhesive.

* New Belgium: labels come off easily in very hot water; scrub lightly to remove remaining adhesive and clean with hot soapy water.

While Summit (MN) makes good beer, their bottles are a complete waste of time to delabel. Don't bother trying.

Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada labels fall right off in an oxyclean soak.

Expensive to acquire, but Duvel labels fall off in seconds with no residue.

Never had a label that didn't come off easily when soaked in oxyclean. So any beer!

tom_gamer said:

Never had a label that didn't come off easily when soaked in oxyclean. So any beer!

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I've had a few brands that leave a glue like residue after long soaks. Cant recall which brands of beer. Some do come off cleaner and quicker than others.

Wobbegong said:

I've had a few brands that leave a glue like residue after long soaks. Cant recall which brands of beer. Some do come off cleaner and quicker than others.

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And almost anything with a foil label is an utter PITA to get off. I just toss them.

Yes - Old Rasputin is by far the biggest PITA Ive found as far as getting the labels off. Somehow, though, other North Coast beers aren't so bad.

Ithaca labels come off easily- someone gave me some Amstel Light bottles that i threw away- nightmare! Also dead on with the Southern Tier- great beer and easy labels to remove.

Almost all of them come off after an oxyclean soak and a little scrubbing with some dish soap and steel wool.

I never use Shorts. Terrible glue they use.

Bells works great. Hot soak and and quick rub with a green scrubby.

I also love Guinness bottles. No soaking. Just run a sharp knife down the side and slit the plastic label and peel off. Yank the "widget" with needle nose pliers and rinse out. Nice shape too. Not for competitions, but otherwise my favorite.

I called the local bar to see if they would save their Guinness bottles this weekend. I bet there will be a SHT TON of those things left over after this weekend!

The other day I soaked a bunch of 312 bottles in OxiClean and the labels took themselves off in about 5 minutes.

stay far away from Dark Horse, their labels are a pain.

Brau Brothers (MN) labels fall off after a short soak too. Great beer too.

For WI beer, both New Glarus and Sand Creek come off easily. New Glarus is the better beer though.

New Glarus almost jumps off the bottle!

The new Guinness draught bottles, plastic label, no glue, and there is no widget. Just cut off the plastic label and you are done!

Sam Adams have easy to remove labels...well...all but the SA light bottles

all the 11.2 flanders red and brown drop right off with water and a drop of ammonia. rodenbach, duchesse, ichtegems, jacobin's and bocker all use the same little bottles and the same simple labels

Stone. LOL. JK

I had a big collection of Racer 5 and New Belgium because they were so easy to delabel, then I realized that something about the lip shape of these bottles makes them stick in my capper. The only bottles I've found that don't stick are Lagunitas 12 oz.

The best thing in the world is a 750ml swing top that's easy to delabel!

If you are not soaking your bottles in Oxy to remove the labels you are doing more work than necessary. I tried it (actually the cheap Dollar Tree version) for the first time recently and the labels actually just fell right off the bottles, even the tough ones like Ninkasi with little or no glue residue. I could kick myself in the ass for not trying Oxy earlier.

Red Hook. Maybe not the best beer, but the bottles are unique, plain, and labels are super easy.

Westvleteren Blonde / 8 / 12

msmith92 said:

Stone. LOL. JK

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Soak in starsan. Will come right off.

passedpawn said:

Westvleteren Blonde / 8 / 12

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ha ha- the easiest

I soak in oxyclean and they literally fall off in the water after a few hours

German labels come off pretty easily...Erdinger, Paulaner, Spaten. They all fall off in like 5 minutes...Guiness as well.

Forget Pliny...that thing is infused to the glass I swear...ridiculous. Odell's with that paper label is sort of a pain as well.

Schlafly (best brewery in St. Louis, imo) are my favorite bottles to use. They look cool, the labels are easy to remove, and it's really easy to empty them of beer.

Tastes Tasty. Mmmmmm.

Odell's bottle labels fall right off in no time.

Homercidal said:

I never use Shorts. Terrible glue they use.

Bells works great. Hot soak and and quick rub with a green scrubby.

I also love Guinness bottles. No soaking. Just run a sharp knife down the side and slit the plastic label and peel off. Yank the "widget" with needle nose pliers and rinse out. Nice shape too. Not for competitions, but otherwise my favorite.

I called the local bar to see if they would save their Guinness bottles this weekend. I bet there will be a SHT TON of those things left over after this weekend!

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I don't even hot soak Bells. A little condensation after pulling it out of the fridge and they come right off. There is a little bit of reside left and I just run it under the water and rub it off with my hand.

Howe Sound beer is, in my experience, the absolute easiest label to remove. It doesn't require any water at all. I think it must be a "removable" label - the whole thing just peels off in a sheet. Nice bottles, too.

I just took the labels off a bunch of different bottles. Any of the Dogfish Head labels were a little more difficult as they were paper and the glue was a little thick (Punkin Ale). The easiest by far were my St. Bernardus Belgian bottles and the Flying Dog Labels. Soaked overnight and the labels were just sitting at the bottom of the bucket the next morning. Belhaven and Innis and Gunn labels on the clear bottles were a lost cause. They have a plastic sticker label and didn't loosen up at all...tossed 'em.

Good one on the Westvleteran.

Mickeymoose said:

The new Guinness draught bottles, plastic label, no glue, and there is no widget. Just cut off the plastic label and you are done!

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This and I find the summits to be some of the best for the oxi soak 99% of them don't even have a speck of glue left on them after 2 or 3 hours

+1 to the Guinness being easier, takes less effort and is faster.

deerbelac said:

Schlafly (best brewery in St. Louis, imo) are my favorite bottles to use. They look cool, the labels are easy to remove, and it's really easy to empty them of beer.

Tastes Tasty. Mmmmmm.

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I can attest to this. Schlafly makes great beer, labels peel right off after a hot water bath, and you just need to lightly scrub to remove the leftover adhesive. Although, I was a little disappointed when they changed to their new bottles after their 20th anniversary.

They used to be blank bottles, now they have their EST. year on it... oh well.

Anybody know of any other breweries that still use blank bottles?

Red Hook has completely blank bottles, and they are neatly shaped.

hmmm i disagree with the southern tier, the plastic label does come off super easy but the glue residue is impossible to get off. i dont have oxiclean so with my other bottles i would let it soak in hot water for an hour and they peel right off along with the glue. if the glue is still there an easy scrub with a sponge does the trick. guess ill have to get some oxiclean

Without reading through all the responses new Belgium come off very easily with warm water applied to them

Brooklyn Brewery has the WORST bottles to use. They're attached with some kind of industrial compound or something, not even worth trying. DFH and Sam Adams are great, 20 minutes in an oxyclean soak and off.

+1 on Duval bottles, the best. Labels fall off in hot water, Son-in-law's and I bought 4 cases in an after Christmas special, four bottles and a glass for $5.50, emptying them was joyous part of the process.

Tony

I just soaked a bunch of bottles last night. Hanger 24 and Indian Wells Brewery will be going the way of the recyclers. Widmer and Sierra Nevada were the easiest for me. Soaked everything in hot water and oxiclean.

hopbrad said:

hmmm i disagree with the southern tier, the plastic label does come off super easy but the glue residue is impossible to get off. i dont have oxiclean so with my other bottles i would let it soak in hot water for an hour and they peel right off along with the glue. if the glue is still there an easy scrub with a sponge does the trick. guess ill have to get some oxiclean

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I had the same problem with the Southern Tier bombers. Soaked 'em in hot water for a bit and the labels came right off but the glue residue endures. Looks like I'm Oxyclean bound too.