Very old bottles

the other day i purchased some beer bottles from a guy on craigslist. He said that they were old (20+ years) They are all coors and budwieser bottles (some even remain unopened) My question is should I be using these for my homebrew? I feel a little sad taking the labels off such old bottles. Should i be keeping them for any reason, or just treat them like any other bottle?

That's a tough one. I'd say keep them and not use them for homebrew.

I have a few old stroh's bottles and cans, and I have them on a shelf in my "drinking room", along with other relics (a 100yr old wood crate from an Upper Peninsula brewery that died from Prohibition).

Bottles are not that hard to get, and are cheap if you drink a lot of craft beer like me. Use other bottles, not the old ones.

wSelwyn said:

That's a tough one. I'd say keep them and not use them for homebrew.

Bottles are not that hard to get, and are cheap if you drink a lot of craft beer like me. Use other bottles, not the old ones.

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Even in the case that I have 5 cases? Only 7 of which are full still? Seems like its a bit of a waste either way, do they have any real value though? I paid the guy $20 for them.

I suspect that a 20 year old Coors or Bud bottle has limited collector value.

If you like the look of the labels, grab a couple to put on display and put the rest to work containing your homebrew.

20 year old Coors/bud bottles aren't old.
I have some Olympia (old local defunct brewery) quart bottles from the 50's/60's that still take caps fine.

Did the BMCs use pry offs back in the day?

As long as they will seal with a standard capper, I'd wash them up and use them in a heartbeat!!

iv_hokie12 said:

Did the BMCs use pry offs back in the day?

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20 years ago was 1992, this is in no way "back in the day".


now where did I leave that walker?

As far as I can remember, Coors and Bud bottles were still twist off "back in the day"

warnerp87 said:

Even in the case that I have 5 cases? Only 7 of which are full still? Seems like its a bit of a waste either way, do they have any real value though? I paid the guy $20 for them.

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I didn't realize that you got that many bottles from the guy.

I'd go with processhead's reply. If they are pry-off, and not twist-off, keep a few of the better ones for nostolgia, and de-label + fill the others with delicious homebrew.

AGadvocate said:

As far as I can remember, Coors and Bud bottles were still twist off "back in the day"

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20 years ago I was 5, ha ha. Anyway he said they are "at least" 20 years old. But they are all pop-offs, said he used to own a restaurant and that they were the "deposit" type. Anyway thanks for the input, does anyone know if they carry value at all? Or would it just be nostalgia?

amandabab said:

20 years ago was 1992, this is in no way "back in the day".


now where did I leave that walker?

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I was having a great day until you mentioned this. I guess its time for my prune juice.

I highly doubt they carry much value to be honest. I know that some OLD bottles of BMC carry some value to certain collectors, though its usually bottles from the small companies that BMC ran out of town that are worth any real dough. 20 years ago bud had over half of the market share, meaning they sold more beer than all of the other brewers put together, meaning their bottles wont be worth a whole lot to a collector due to the sheer amount of them still available today. People collect rare things, not readily available things.

Save a few for the shelf, use the rest.

Makes sense. Thanks again! If anyone is interested I'll post some pictures later, the coors boxes are especially cool.

The old returnable pop tops were the best! Nice heavy bottles that I always got a good seal on. The newer ones seem a little thin, and with the the LHBS brown bottles, I always seem to break one while capping. Soak em good in hot oxy water overnight, and use em!:rockin:

as promised! :rockin:

I have a couple of those boxes, those things are the bomb. I'd be nicer to that box than the old bud bottles.

zeekage said:

I have a couple of those boxes, those things are the bomb. I'd be nicer to that box than the old bud bottles.

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Yeah, they are 20+ years old and still (minus some dust) look newish, I will defiantly be keeping them for awhile.

zeekage said:

I have a couple of those boxes, those things are the bomb. I'd be nicer to that box than the old bud bottles.

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I had a few of those cases....don't like the beer, but Bud made some damn nice cases!

That is a score. Not to mention the good boxes, those are returnable bottles which are built heavier than the modern throwaways.

unionrdr said:

I agree. Save some full ones for your collection,& recycle the rest for home brew. Clean up those case boxes,they're nice & heavy Compared to new. A 5G batch would average two fo them,so it'd be less volume than a bunch of 12 pack boxes.

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Sounds good! Thanks for all of the input, washing and de labeling for bottling day on thursday!

if they are returnables, use them. or get back your .75. i wish i had kept all my returnables (i cashed most them out when i moved and switched to kegging 15 years ago). Especially the bud fatneck ones...

I have purchased a number of long neck returnables at auctions over the years. Some have obviouslly been around for a long time.

Very heavy glass with bubbles, flaws, imperfections, and a lighter shade of brown glass than modern bottles.

Glass is truely forever.... if you don't break it.