Best place to buy Empty Bottles

Hi,
Im just starting with Homebrewing. I have a batch ready that I need to bottle next week but am having a hard time trying to find clean, new empties at a decent price. Does anyone have a line on someone that sells cheap new bottles...or do I just have to drink a lot more beer and save the empties? Either way is fine. Thanks

I'd never pay for bottles. Either have some friends over to drain some bottles or go through recyclables. You might have to clean some of them but its much cheaper...

Go by some bars and ask them for empties. You might check out some package stores too they may even have some old returnables. I'm with Soul on this one I can't see my self paying for bottles I'd dumpster dive in the recycle bin first. But I'm frugal I'd rather clean em up than pay for em.

Post what town you live in. Sometime folks on this site will let you have bottles for the shipping cost or free if you are willing to drive over and pick them up.

Yeah, I have about 200 bottles to give away but no one around me to take them.

Bottles show up on Craigslist occassionally, usually when a homebrewer has just started kegging. Best approach I found was to tell people that I was more than happy to give them this great beer I was brewing, but in return they had to save me all their crown-top bottles (and return any bottles that I gave to them).

my best advice in friends... i bought 2 cases of bottles from the HB shop, then i gave out some of my beer asking my friends to double the bottles.

It worked great for me...

Where are you at? If you're anywhere near me I'll give you two cases of bottles.

+1 on hitting the bars and liquor stores. I've gotten 8 cases (3 of the cases were flip-tops) by asking nicely, explaining I'm a home brewer, and always making sure to buy at least a sixer. I was able to just pay for the bottle deposit (10 cents each).

It will takes some time to clean them and de-label them, but it's worth the effort.

look in the yellow pages for local bottling/distributing companies. I've bought old Budweiser pop-top deposit bottles for a nickel each, and they thru in the cardboard case.

I also have about 200 bottles to give away

I'm not too keen on dumpster diving myself. What I've found works for me though is to keep an eye out at the liquor store and buy seasonals at the end of season when they are marked down and reuse the bottles.

I get bottles that are easy to clean because I can rinse them when I pour them, I get to try some beers at a good price and I tell myself that this is my contribution to recycling and that it makes Al Gore warm and fuzzy.