Good Beer Bottles To Use

I drink all sorts of beers so I have a variation of bottles, I know that to reuse bottles for bottling you need to have pop offs but wanted to know which brands are good to reuse and which to stay away from. Thanks!

 

anything brown that isn't cracked

 

Don't know if you drink any Mendocino Brewing Company (e.g. Red Tail), but I've noticed their labels are hard to get off. Sierra Nevada's labels are easy, and North Coast's are super easy.

 

Oxyclean is your friend

 

I like the Sierra Nevada's because they are short and stubby so they fit in the top rack of the dishwasher. Plus I like their beer.

+1 on the oxyclean.

 

What does the oct clean do for label removal? Or do you just use it to clean the bottles?

 

an overnight soak in a tub of oxyclean and there is nothing simpler -all your labels are floating and off the bottles, or at the very worst, peel right off.

a good healthy rinse and you're ready to store, or sanitize and use.

 

Put your bottles into a bucket of hot water and oxy clean and the labels float right off.

 

I will never use Oxyclean again. After a 24 hr soak I rinsed and scrubbed with my bottle brush and after they air dried, I had wicked scale build up. Tried washing over and over to no avail.

I even cut back the soak to an hour and while the scale wasn't AS bad it still showed up. I had 60 bottles that I thought were ruined so I just soaked them over night in a 5 gal bucket full of Starsan I had left over from a previous bottling day. After rinsing and scrubbing, the Starsan seemed to get rid of it so I didn't have to chuck my bottles. But who knows, I live in FL and we have hard water so I am sure that had something to do with it.

Now...sorry about that rant... Magic Hat and Breckenridge use a lot of glue. I like Guiness bottles, no glue whatsoever!

 

+1

 

Sam Adams are good bottles but cant be used for competition, I also drink a lot of Saranac (they have a new White IPA thats unbelievable) and the bottles are just as good with no brand stamp

 

@Mase -

a vinegar rinse will help knock the scale back if you have hard water.

 

smuttynose labels suck to get off...even with an oxyclean soak.

 

I like odd bottles, like orvals and maredsous

We use a lot of new belgium bottles because the 12 pack boxes they come in are quite sturdy. Although now, we just ask our LHBS for boxes, and get nice sturdy case boxes.

Anything amber, that you like, the odd shape ones like I like don't tend to fit in six packs well.

Oh and just go buy a couple cases from your LHBS, so if you ever want to try and enter one of your beers in a competition you can. You can't use bottles that have any kind of insignia or brewery identification in the glass.

 

I like to use Red Hook bottles. They are a cool, stubby, retro style and don't use a lot of glue and also have a nice lip for the capper to grip come bottling time. An hour soak in hot water and oxyclean cleans em right up.

 

Just used a bunch of boulevard smokestack series bottles for a tank 7 clone. I used the 12 oz and the 750s.

 

I use Boulevard Pilsner bottles. Labels come off in a solution of water and oxyclean in just a couple of mins and i like their shape.

 

*if you don't have hard water. If you do, then you'll get awful soap residue on your bottles that will not come off.

 

Buy some bottles. They are one of the cheaper investments in brewing as you can reuse them indefinitely, sort of like your boil kettle. I've bottled over 1000 bottles and have broken 3, one where the neck snapped off while capping, two when the bottom of a 6-pack carrier gave way and let them fall to the concrete floor.

 

The stubby browns like sierra nevada and abita use are perfect. I try to only use them but mr. sam adams keeps sneaking into my fridge!

 

Same with Pliny The Elder bottles; the label comes right off but the glue stays on the bottle and requires a green pad to scrub off

Clown Shoes uses plastic labels that peel of easily but I often have the same problem with the glue.

 

I like Deschutes because around the top it has a hop vine that adds some nice detail to unlabeled bottles. But Sierra Nevada also because of their shape

 

I scored 7 doz EZ-Cap swingtops before ever brewing my first batch. Sooo easy to use!

 

+1

+1

 

Love Sam Adams bottles
Scored 6+ Cases from son's wedding

 

Coconut oil. Rub it on the leftover glue, let it sit for a few minutes, wash with a green pad and soap under HOT water. This doesn't eliminate the need for a green pad, but there's less scrubbing involved.

Or, a thin coating of Goo Gone. Wait a few minutes, wipe off with a clean dry dishcloth. Wash off the extra residue with soap and hot water.

Both of those depend on your having already soaked off as much of the paper label as possible.

 

Hard water scale and other residue: find a cheap source of citric acid (shop around online). It's like soaking stuff with vinegar, but on steroids.

Some people recommend using a packet of unsweetened lemonade-flavored Kool-aid (which gets its tartness from ... citric acid) in the dishwasher to get rid of spots, so I don't see why it wouldn't also work in a bucket to soak spotted bottles, if you're not into buying a bunch of citric acid over the internet.

 

I like leffe due to the shape. I hate leffe since they are 11.5 and not 12 oz. Leffe needs to get bigger.

I like Tucher due to size, labels are easy enough with a soak.

Sam Adams is a sneaky bastard! Who put him in my fridge?

Tonight I discovered Shock Top is a twisty? Jerks.

 

Correctamundo

Simple Green or Meyers with scalding hot water also works for label removal. Just scalding hot water will also help them off.

 

Red Hook bottles are my 2nd "go to" if I have them around. I wonder if there is a supplier...

 

exactly.

I like to bottle all the same height per batch but that wasn't always possible.
It is now and eventually will be for a newbie.

EZ-caps are great but expensive to get initially, but eventually they slowly breed.

Other than competition concerns or personal tastes, mechanically there isn't really any difference barring the European 29mm. you have to go out of your way to find them in North America.

 

new beligum (aka fat tire) all there lables come off super easy.

 

Idk what's with everyone using oxyclean... Scalding hot water in the sink for 20 mins the labels peel off them I take a quick steel wool to the glue and done, no soap, no scaling

 

I like Unibroue, glass is nice and thick Labels come off easy too.

 

The Good:

• New Belgium

• Odell Brewing

• Great Divide

• Mad River Brewing

The Bad:

• Avery bombers - sometimes the adhesive requires a bit of work and the aluminum bits are a little annoying

• Uinta Belgian bombers - label disintegrates after a soak in Oxyclean, but leaves a base layer on top of the adhesive that is a real pain to remove.

• Dry Dock bombers - label falls off easily, but adhesive requires some scrubbing

The Ugly:

• Russian River - labels come off easy but adhesive remains and requires an eternity to get rid of

• Odell Belgian-style bombers - an Oxy soak just leeches the ink out of the label. I have 6 of these that I've yet to remove.

• St. Bernardus

• Anything with a screened on label...

 

I've been trying to collect some red hook bottles (pretty dang cool), but have been having a hard time getting through the 6 packs.

 

I've been known to buy 6-packs of cool bottles and dump the free beer that came with them.

 

Fat tire labels practically fall off with just water! My buddy loves them so I have a great supplier!

 

German hefe bottles. They are 16.9 oz. I think they are returnable in germany, so the labels just float off in water,

 

Sierra Nevada bottles are nice and small and the labels fall off very easily with an overnight soap and water soak.