Advice on flying with homebrew

[smokey810]

I'd like to pack a couple beers in my check in baggage this weekend. I'm worried about the risk of losing a bottle cap either from change in pressure or rough handling from the airline crew. My FGs are 1.010 and 1.012 and both were bottle conditioned with about 1.5-2.0 volumes (2.5 and 3.0 oz corn sugar for 5 gal batch, respectively).

Also, how much time would they need to settle out? Arriving Saturday afternoon, I'd like to serve them on Sunday night, probably not much more than 36 hours in a refrigerator. Is this going to be more trouble than it's worth?

 

[Doctor_M]

Not sure if it's legal to move your homebrew to another state but people fly with bottle conditioned beer all the time. Cargo areas are pressurized... remember fido the dog and fefe the cat sometimes are down there. 24 hours should be enough to let the beer settle.

Edited to add: now if the plane depressurizes you may have a mess on your hands, but something tells me your beer will be the least of your worries at that point.

 

[NTexBrewer]

Every time I have family visit they always leave with some of my beer. So far there has never been any problems. I usually double ziplock bag them.

I just brought back some beer from Ecuador. Again no problems and these beers had twist off caps.

 

[porterpounder]

I usually pack checked with two sheet of the small-cell bubble-wrap to a bottle (or wrapped a piece of clothing) and rubber-banded just in case TSA wants a look. Jam 2-4 of them snugly into a big ziplock bag so that they don't move around and clank against each other. Sandwich the bag between clothes. I was able to get 10 bottles per suitcase safely back from Belgium this way in October, no problems. I left about half of my clothes behind to make room.

 

[BreezyBrew]

I fly with beer all the time, and no problem. I've flown with a 12 pack or more before, and no issue. Just packed them really well.

 

[Jette]

Surround with ziplock and bubble wrap. Remember, they serve bottled beer in the cabin at the same pressure.

 

[dustys_dad]

Surround with ziplock and bubble wrap. Remember, they serve bottled beer in the cabin at the same pressure.

+1 on the ziploc and bubble wrap. I bring back plenty of Pliny to Colorado from California and do that every time. Never had an issue.

 

[brewguyver]

Assuming you didn't grossly overcarb your beer, it should be fine. I've done everything from t-shirts to bubble wrap, and it seemed to work well. Make sure to have the bags marked fragile just in case, and then assume the crap will be kicked out of them and pack accordingly. I also like to use the movers saran wrap to make nice tight packages around the bottles, but that's severe overkill.

As an aside, I believe you can travel with home brew for tasting and sampling purposes, but laws change from state to state.

Finally, keep an eye on your bag's weight. Pint's a pound the world around, and those bottles have a little heft to them too. You don't want to go to check your bag and have to unpack it.

 

[JoppaFarms]

Going home for Christmas this year I checked a cardboard box full of homebrew as my second "luggage" bag. I had each wax dipped bottle individually bubble wrapped so that the wax drippings wouldn't get messed up and I would have nice looking gifts to give out. TSA really helped me out by opening the box to inspect it, unwrapped every bottle, stuffed the bubble wrap in the bottom of the box and stacked all the bottles directly on top of one another.

Fortunately no bottles broke. Unfortunately the wax didn't fare so well. Thanks TSA.

But no, you don't have to worry about the caps coming off or anything that exciting. It will be fine.

 

[DrunkleJon]

Not sure if it's legal to move your homebrew to another state but people fly with bottle conditioned beer all the time. Cargo areas are pressurized... remember fido the dog and fefe the cat sometimes are down there. 24 hours should be enough to let the beer settle.

Edited to add: now if the plane depressurizes you may have a mess on your hands, but something tells me your beer will be the least of your worries at that point.

I am going to "Well, actually" you on this one as I used to work as a baggage chucker (handler). The checked baggage area is not always pressurized, or heated for that matter. They only really pressurize them when animals are in there. Pretty much all I remember about the training courses because they had this cute little 6 year old girl saying "where's my spawwky (Sparky)?" with that childhood w lisp and saying "Do YOU really want to have to tell her what happened to her Sparky?"

Additionally on the topic of checking baggage. I am going to assume you have heard about Sampsonite having a lifetime guarantee right? They are there for a reason, your bags get abused terribly when checked. Especially if they are overweight and/or bulky bags.