Homebrew as Wedding Favors? Bottle Questions

[PangaeaBeerFood]

So, a friend of mine asked me if I'd be interested in making a homebrew to give away at his wedding (in October 2013, over a year away) as a wedding favor. It sounds like a cool project and something I'd love to do, but the wedding is going to be MASSIVE and very upscale. I'd need at least 600 bottles.

I want to try to do something a touch more decorative than regular brown bottles. Do you know of any companies that sell more unique styled bottled? Do you know of any companies, in general, that sell homebrew bottles in bulk? Because it'll be expensive to purchase 600 through regular retail websites. I don't care if they're crown cappable, corkable, swing top, etc., so long as they can handle carbonation.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[H-ost]

This sounds like a very expensive wedding present.

Maybe use normal/reused bottles but instead order some etched glasses for everyone. Still expensive but it sounds a little cheaper than 600 fancy bottles.

 

[NCGrayson]

Why don't you bottle 200 bottles and keg the rest?

 

[PangaeaBeerFood]

This sounds like a very expensive wedding present.

Maybe use normal/reused bottles but instead order some etched glasses for everyone. Still expensive but it sounds a little cheaper than 600 fancy bottles.

I think that'd be even more expensive. Etched glasses, even in bulk, are probably $1 each, plus I'd have to brew the beer and supply normal bottles. Even at retail, those 187ml champagne bottles are about $1 each and regular 12 oz. bottles are about $.50 each. If I'm looking to buy a lot of 600, I'd imagine I could find a wholesaler who could give me a much better price on them than retail. If I need to, I'll do 12 oz. bottles and it'll be fine, but I figured if I'm looking to go the wholesaler chain anyway, I might be able to find something slightly more unique for a comparable cost.

It'll be pricey, sure, but weddings in New York are insane. Gifts range from $100-200 per head standard anyway, and this would be from me and my girlfriend, so we reasonably have a $400 budget. Plus it just sounds fun to do.

Why don't you bottle 200 bottles and keg the rest?

Because we aren't planning to serve it at the wedding. Otherwise I'd keg all of it. They want the homebrew to be a favor that the quests can take home with them.

 

[liquiditynerd]

I have the same dilemma. I am trying to bottle my Merry Me Mead for wedding favors for our September wedding in central ny. I have a lot of bottles but they're my keepers. Right now I'm leaning towards Anchor bottles but $10 a six pack will add up. How many would five gallons take?

 

[krazydave]

Not to support the thread hijack, but I believe 5gal fills about 54 bottles or so.

to the OP, I think I would do the brown bottles, but label them creatively. Maybe hot glue or tie a ribbon around them with the colors of the wedding?
And get colored caps the match also if you can. I think that would be sufficient enough even for an upscale wedding.

You see, the thing is, guests know that beer usually comes in brown bottles, so it won't be anything new to them to see a brown bottle. But if you decorate those brown bottles well, they'll be impressed with the creativity of making a brown bottle look cool. To me, that's worth more than trying to find fancy bottles and I'm sure your wedding party will feel the same.

Take this from a photographer that's shot more weddings that I care to admit.

 

[krazydave]

Deleted: Duplicate

 

[krazydave]

Deleted: Duplicate

 

[krazydave]

wow, click submit once and get three replies. Awesome!

 

[Lavender_Pepper]

I agree on the unique labels!! They'll likely be more noticed than any non-traditional bottle anyways.

 

[OSBrain]

+1 on the creative label idea. Forget fancy bottles and just go for standard brown beer bottles with cool labels.

You've got a year, start saving up the bottles! I personally like the bottles from Deschutes Brewery, the labels come off cleanly and they have hop cones imprinted on them.

 

[BrewThruYou]

I did this for my wedding last November. Used regular 12oz long necks with self-designed labels with neck labels too. Ordered laser-engraved bottle caps.

If you did fancy bottles, it'd be way too expensive unless you had a small amount of guests. The Vinnie bottles are $1/ea. They are really cool though.

 

[jstraight]

I did same for my daughters wedding. Bottles were an issue. Could't afford $1/new 6 oz bottle, so went to bottle redemption site and they saved 7 cases of 6/7 oz bud lite twist for me. Now I know twist tops are not recommended but used an old bench top caper and no broken bottles and I think all sealed, will find out for sure this Sat. at the wedding. She did her own calligraphy for invitation so used it for background with info over on Avery peel and stick circle round labels. Tin foil mini cupcake cups for cap cover. We are happy. By the way going to redemption site turned out great, they now save Grolsh and other 16 oz bottles for me @ .05 return price. And of course a few HBs.

 

[mendesm]

Check out the link in this post

 

[daksin]

Why not do a fancy beer in a champagne bottle- you can buy a large crown for your capper for like a dollar. You could even wax the caps for extra shmancy. Then you'd only have to do ~100 bottles. One really nice bottle per person would be a great gift.

 

[SharonaZamboni]

Is this 100 guests with a six pack each? 600 bottles would be a nightmare. Bottling, labeling, storing, transporting, etc.

*You said a huge wedding, so 600 guests. Wow.

 

[Proboscidea]

Another idea: spray-paint regular bottles in the wedding colors.

I received 60 screen-printed Corona bottles from a well-intentioned friend, and gave them a couple coats of spray paint, totally expecting the stuff to flake off quickly (it was an experiment). I'm happy to report that those suckers have survived at least 3-4 bottlings and are none the worse for wear. Eventually they will start looking skanky, but the wedding guests will probably just drink what's in them and then recycle 'em. Actually, come to think of it, they only needed the second coat to completely cover the screen printing and give it an even surface. On virgin bottles you could probably just do one coat.

 

[Proboscidea]

Why not do a fancy beer in a champagne bottle

I love this idea.

Now I have a mental picture of the OP strategically crashing a bunch of weddings and stealthily trawling the recycling bins for empty champagne bottles.

Or you could make friends with a wedding caterer and get your quota in a couple weekends.

 

[ReverseApacheMaster]

Not all champagne bottles are the same shape so that might be an issue. Plus it seems like OP needs 600 bottles as gifts, not just bottles to fill a certain amount of beer so 600 750ml bottles means twice as much beer as 12oz bottles.

My initial thought is to contact a local brewery or brewpub and see if you can tack on to one of their orders and just get whatever bottles they normally use. I don't know if 600 bottles is quite wholesale so this is probably your cheapest option, even if you have to drive a little to pick them up. If not, maybe your local shop can get you a better rate through their wholesaler buying at that quantity.

You could easily transform a standard 12oz bottleneck into something classy with a foil wrap or a wax dip.

Another thing you might want to do is have the couple check with their reception venue and make sure they are ok with it. It would really suck ass to spend that much time and money and then not be able to hand them out.

 

[PangaeaBeerFood]

You could easily transform a standard 12oz bottleneck into something classy with a foil wrap or a wax dip.

Another thing you might want to do is have the couple check with their reception venue and make sure they are ok with it. It would really suck ass to spend that much time and money and then not be able to hand them out.

Yeah, the more I think about it, the 187ml champagne bottles would be awesome, but it makes no logical sense to spend more money for half the contents. I'll have to dress up some 12-ouncers. I'll try a few ideas when I make a test batch, foil top some, wax dip some, etc., and see what the bride/groom think.

And yeah, obviously before we go forward on this project we'll make sure its okay with the hall, the family, make sure we're okay with the prices, etc.

 

[9Frogs]

Your friend is buying you a Sabco for doing all this, right?

 

[jstraight]

Wedding was great and beer favors were a big hit. About 1/3 of bottles were opened there and no reported flat beer, That's a releaf.

 

[Proboscidea]

For a second there, I thought you were the OP, and that you had a time machine.

And I was going to thank you for coming all the way back to 2012 and reporting the future results of the wedding brew.

And ask you which stocks to buy.