Hunting for colored Crown caps

New to the forum, and mostly new to brewing.

My friend and I are brewing 8 batches to enjoy at a large New Year's party this year.

Rather than worry about labels, we were considering capping each flavor (6 in all) with different colored caps. At www.atlaslabel.com, they have about 8 different colors, but he only sells them 10,000 at a time. At www.d-originals.com they have even more colors, but charge $3 for 12 caps -- way too expensive.

Does anyone have a good resource for simple, plain, colored caps in a variety of colors?

Thanks.
kvh

most online places that I have seen sell only one to three different colors or styles of caps.

You could just buy a bunch of plain gold ones and get a pack of multi-colored permanant markers to 'tag' them. That's what I usually do.

Or, you can probably find little circle stickers at a drug store or office supply store in many different colors. Just stick one of those to the cap or the bottle.

-walker

We'd had the same thought -- gold and silver seem to be standard, as are the Brewers Best and Hooch. The Stars and Stripes are decent too, but not what we're looking for.

Our back-up plan is to make rubber stamps and print the flavors in different colors on, but these caps just look soooo good: http://www.d-originals.com/oscshop/...6_120&osCsid=720971d4ea4b1699a3f27e975c60c031
don't you agree?

-kvh

at $0.25 each, they would have to significantly improve the flavor of my beer before I would consider buying them.

Those caps will make the price of your homebrew go up 30% to 40%.

Cool? Maybe, but I don't think they are THAT cool.

after all, the first thing you are going to do with the bottled brews is bend the caps off and toss them in the trash.


tink... 25 cents in the trash
tink... 50 cents in the trash
tink... 75 cents in the trash


-walker

Right. I understand the price -- the whole reason I'm not buying them from that supplier is the sound of quarters clinking in the trash can. The question remains -- does anyone have a CHEAP source of colored caps?

thnx.
kvh

Can of spraypaint?

Ok, so to answer my own questions, http://www.homebrewheaven.com/vHome.htm sells colored caps in relatively small quantities. Their store page for them is here:
https://secure9.nexternal.com/share...2=838935494&ProductID=320&Target=products.asp

200+ for less than $4.00 is more like it.

So, I guess now all of you can now have a reasonable price for colored caps too.

kvh

p.s. That spraypaint idea was a good one, and why I didn't think of it I can't figure out -- I may use it for the colors I want but can't buy... thanks!!

Take a look at this thread here. Just a bit more info!

I knew the homebrewheaven.com website would pop back up somewhere... I had found it a while back but couldn't remember who it was if it was a domestic or international site...

As far as inkjet printing on labels goes (as mentioned on that other thread), they will have a tendency to bleed with moisture. Laser printing or xerox would be much more waterproof. As it happens, I work for an art school in the printmaking department and have access to screenprinting and letterpress equipment (hell, I maintain it) for all my labeling needs. But I'm not wasting my time making labels for drunken partygoers.... I'll funnel that time into making more beer instead.

kvh

Why not just use a marker and put a number on top. Then all yuou would have to to is make a place card by the bottles to let every body know which beer is which. I did this at a party and worked out great. I opened 1 of each so the ones who had never had good beer could see or taste a small amount to see if they would like it. That way I didn't have a lot of half bottles to either drink myself or worse dump down the drain. Also very cheap and you don't have to clean labels off of empties.
.

cap46 said:

Why not just use a marker and put a number on top.

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It's all about aesthetics.

And I'm not labeling the bottles for this project. I'll worry about labels later this fall or next spring for special occasions (friends' birthdays, etc).

kvh

What about that aluminum foil type stuff they put around champagne bottles? I think you can get that stuff in different colors and its not too expensive. It would add a classy touch to the bottles.

joeyuwp said:

What about that aluminum foil type stuff they put around champagne bottles? I think you can get that stuff in different colors and its not too expensive. It would add a classy touch to the bottles.

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Good call on the foil....I'd never thought of doing that myself.

Good find with the colored caps (the cheap ones), too. I'm going to have a few batches to bottle, and that's just what I was looking for.

Look for caps called "OVERRUNS". They come in several colors.

Try Ebay. I've seen them show up there before.

I make little circle labels for the tops of my beers. With the right label program (I use Labels Unlimited, but have to tweak some label formats) you can type in the name of the beer/date before printing.

Also check Staples and Office Max for the colored circle labels many stores use for pricing.

homebrewer_99 said:

Look for caps called "OVERRUNS". They come in several colors.

Click to expand...

My HBS carries several different kinds of Overruns. They're pretty cheap and you can give each beer the cap of a beer your friends have never heard of. I'm currently using some Wild Onion Brewery beauties.

I just placed an order friday with www.homebrewheaven.com for colored caps and the ingredients for a Belgian Trippel.... They have 7 colors in stock right now-- red, navy, silver, gold, teal, green, and black, plus the standard stars and stripes...

I bought a pound of each except for gold, stars, and stripes.

If you're looking for something a little new to dress up your bottles, give these a try.

kvh