Where to find bottles?

I am about to bottle my first-ever batch, but don't have bottles. What's best - plastic or glass? Where can I find bottles in Florida (Tampa area).

drink more beer!
ive heard of people getting empty bottles from restaurants or bars. i tried at a few, but they turned me down. maybe at privately owned places.

I find them at liquor stores full of beer, I take care of emptying them myself. Then again, I thought about this way in advance of bottling...you may want to have a party, just don't buy screw top bottles...

go recycler dumpster diving!

Do you have a freecycle list in your area? Check google or Yahoo. I've had success asking for empty bottles on Freecycle.

If worse comes to worse you can always buy empty bottles at the lhbs. About $9 a case and you can reuse for life as long as you make your friends give them back when you supply them samples... I purchased about 4 cases regular bottles and 2 cases of swing top pints when I started.

Since then, I've amassed many cases by drinking 'pop-top' beers, having friends keep me cases who drink 'pop tops', etc. This is the best method IMO.

Edit: If style isn't really your thing and you plan on drinking them in short order, plastic soda bottles, etc. will work. Have your coworkers save their 20oz. coke bottles, etc. This is as chincy as it gets (they are white so they dont protect the beer from light), the plastic will probably let some oxygen in over time, etc. but it will work in a pinch. I keep about 6 A&W 20 oz. brown plastic bottles around to bottle 'extra' beers (when you get 50 out of batch but only have 48 glass bottles) and they work fine.

My local homebrew shop sells pretty clean used bottles for about $2.50 a case, but they are also a bottle return center. I assume any bottle return center would be willing to sell you a couple cases, they've usually got them sorted out already.

Get to be friends with a party store owner. Mine lets me buy any returnable bottle they have for 10 cents each (Our deposit in Mich). A good cleaning and label removal and your good to go. $2.40 for a case of either 12oz or 22oz.

I used to take my bottles to the recycler. I now recycle them at home. When people ask me why I have stacks of old bottles I can humbly and truthfully proclaim "I am saving the planet one bottle of homebrew at a time"! I always look at buying new cases of (pop top) beer as an investment in my bottle stock. Kind of works out nice. I recently (Silkky knows about this) found decent beer for $10 a case. That is pretty much the cost of new bottles, plus they came filled. So scour your local distributors for seasonal stock that is rotating out. Most of the time, if it is from the states and kept in good condition, a month or so after the 'use by' date is perfectly fine.

Washing bottles sux! I obtained a bunch of bottles and after attempting to get the mold out of the bottom of most and failing, I bagged it and took the bottle challenge. This is where you buy good beer from the store and attempt to empty them all in time to bottle. Another failure but it was much more enjoyable. I guess doing both together would ease the pain of both. Before you know it you take the dive, buy kegs and save about 2 hours per bottling session!

Just get yourself 2 friends, 2 pizzas, 2 cases of decent beer with non twist off caps. You'll be ready to bottle shortly after... at least equipment-wise.

you can buy regular bottles, one liter plastic bottles, swing tops, growlers, etc from mrbeer.com...i have the basic one liter plastic ones and they work great so i imagine the others would be good as well...idkid