If you open a 2 liter bottle of beer and don't drink the entire thing in one session, you will need
this cap with keg fitting on top so you can hook up
this CO2 cartridge dispenser directly to the bottle to keep enough pressure in the headspace so it stays carbonated. Otherwise the CO2 that was dissolved in the remaining beer will disperse into the now-greatly-increased headspace and your beer will go flat. NurseNan alluded to this.
Another underlying reason to favor glass beer bottles as opposed to 2L soda bottles is because the recipe kits that are readily available from the gamut of homebrew supply stores are designed around the system of 5 gallon batches and bottling in 12oz containers with 1/2" to 1-1/2" of headspace. You have to know what you're doing if you want to deviate from that. For example, a standard recipe kit will come with a sealed package of the exact amount of priming sugar you need to mix up with the 5 gallons of beer in order to carbonate properly in 12oz bottles. Don't use that much priming sugar to naturally carbonate 2 liter bottles though, because it will probably overcarbonate and if you're not careful it may explode. The little CO2 dispenser I linked above is unable to reach the pressure level required to force carbonate, so the only way around the flatness problem (besides drinking all 2 liters at once!) is to acquire what will amount to the most expensive components of a kegging system (CO2 tank, regulator, gas lines and fittings). By that time it's only a few dollars more to get a keg and skip the 2L bottles altogether. But with 12oz bottles, since you drink all 12oz at a time you don't have to deal with re-carbonation issues at all, not to mention oxygenation/oxidation resulting from the leftover beer having been exposed to air.
Once you learn all the insides and outs of brewing, by all means go ahead with 2L bottles. It sure would save some time on bottling day. But when you're just starting out, it is easiest, cheapest and has the best chance of successful homebrewing if you follow our collective advice and stick with 12oz brown bottles. You will learn the reasons why over time.
This has nothing to do with the herd mentality. This has everything to do with helping you have the greatest chance of success and pleasure homebrewing as you start out. Please choose your non-conformity battles on matters of purely personal preference instead.
According to this green is OK. It is beyond me to understand how clear bottles stored in a closet that has no windows or a Fridge that has no light can harm the beer.
Please give me a break? The beer sits in a clear glass or plastic carboy for a week or so ( apparently with no ill effects). Then some will try and tell you that clear bottles are no good.
The reason people are suggesting brown is because light (sunlight and fluorescent) causes a chemical reaction with some component of the hops that results in the exact same chemical compound that skunks emit. Brown bottles are designed to filter out the particular wavelength of light that causes this reaction. Green does not, clear does not. That's why people are suggesting brown as the color bottles to use. It doesn't mean you can leave it under a lamp 24/7, but you can definitely be a lot less careful about how much light your beer is exposed to.
There are a couple reasons I can think of why glass carboys tend to be clear. First, they tend to be stored in darkness anyway. But it could also be (I'm no chemist, someone please correct me if this is wrong) that the light affects the beer closest to the side of the container. Since glass carboys are so wide, the beer in the middle of the carboy is protected against much of the light by the beer on the outside. Maybe this limits the amount of skunking that is possible in a carboy that isn't being stirred. That's just hypothesizing on my part though.
