Are pull tabs comming back?

[cfrazier77]

So, I know i just dated myself. But, take a look at this tab on a bottle from OMB in North Carolina. I have never seen this before. I wish I could get some for my bottling.

 

[Happy Tails Brewing]

I haven’t pulled a tab in so many years. I am so jealous. Never seen one on a bottle before.

 

[MaxStout]

Maybe it's an Aussie thing?

 

[Rish]

So, I know i just dated myself. But, take a look at this tab on a bottle from OMB in North Carolina. I have never seen this before. I wish I could get some for my bottling.View attachment 882362View attachment 882364View attachment 882366View attachment 882367

I've only seen this once. It's pretty cool. Maybe you could contact OMB and find out who their supplier is.

 

[Snuffy]

Back when can pull tabs was a thing, we lived in Mobile, AL and my dad had a friend in the condos across from us named Hannas. He was one of a group of brick masons from Essen, Germany who were in the US to line round kilns at a local brick factory. Anyway, he and his roommates kept all their pull tabs and linked them together in long chains. When the job was over and they were headed home, he gave me two large paper grocery bags completely filled with beer tab chains. I ran beer tab chain all the way around my bedroom in double swooping loops about 3 feet wide and then put a band poster in each loop. It was flippin awesome.

 

[day_trippr]

https://airocpacking.en.made-in-chi...Crown-Cap-Pull-Tabs-for-Beverage-Bottles.html

 

[Happy Tails Brewing]

I don't know what to do. I want some so I and pull some tabs again., but I keg all my beer, so I know I won't use these.

 

[cfrazier77]

I don't know what to do. I want some so I and pull some tabs again., but I keg all my beer, so I know I won't use these.

I keg too, but bottle a couple off the tap for sharing and travel.

 

[PCABrewing]

They're not new to the states, I have opened one or two in the past few years but I cannot remember what it was on.
Might have been that Ginger Beer. I bought some of that a couple times at Costco.

 

[Halfakneecap]

Maybe it's an Aussie thing?

View attachment 882371

I was just thinking about that. Ginger beer is pretty much carbonated to the same "fizz", so why do we get Ginger beer in pull tabs but not beer?

 

[Whisky River]

I’ve seen those overseas before. Not quite as satisfying as the old can tabs which would come off cleanly in one swift pull, these are a little bit more fiddley. Still hurt just as much to step on though!
I’m surprised to see them in the US, I thought we weren’t allowed to play with sharp objects anymore.

 

[Snuffy]

I’ve seen those overseas before. Not quite as satisfying as the old can tabs which would come off cleanly in one swift pull, these are a little bit more fiddley. Still hurt just as much to step on though!
I’m surprised to see them in the US, I thought we weren’t allowed to play with sharp objects anymore.

Yeah. The most effective way to make a bottle cap more dangerous to bare feet would be to add a kickstand.

 

[MaxStout]

Back when can pull tabs was a thing, we lived in Mobile, AL and my dad had a friend in the condos across from us named Hannas. He was one of a group of brick masons from Essen, Germany who were in the US to line round kilns at a local brick factory. Anyway, he and his roommates kept all their pull tabs and linked them together in long chains. When the job was over and they were headed home, he gave me two large paper grocery bags completely filled with beer tab chains. I ran beer tab chain all the way around my bedroom in double swooping loops about 3 feet wide and then put a band poster in each loop. It was flippin awesome.

When I was a kid I'd save pull tabs from pop cans and make a chain like that. I had it strung along a wall of my room. Right above the black light posters.

Then I'd tie an onion to my belt...

 

[Zadkiel]

I see them used here in the UK on drinks that are marketed as being sold at the point of consumption, i.e. small wine or cocktail drinks sold alongside lunch/snack items, to be bought together and taken to a nearby park or something like that. Most people don't carry bottle openers. Usually they will have twist-top caps, but I sometimes see these pull-tabs

 

[BrewZer]

Usually they will have twist-top caps, but I sometimes see these pull-tabs

It's a lot less manufacturing to just punch and form a twist cap. All you have to do is change to bottles with twist threads at the top.

 

[BrewZer]

https://airocpacking.en.made-in-chi...Crown-Cap-Pull-Tabs-for-Beverage-Bottles.html

View attachment 882394

The name of that place is "Everything's $1200."

 

[whoaru99]

The only pull tabs I recall seeing around here for quite some time are these kind -

 

[Deadalus]

I’ve seen those overseas before. Not quite as satisfying as the old can tabs which would come off cleanly in one swift pull, these are a little bit more fiddley. Still hurt just as much to step on though!
I’m surprised to see them in the US, I thought we weren’t allowed to play with sharp objects anymore.

They broke sometimes but I was just a kid. You had to pull up some then back, not straight back. Then the parents would yell, "WAWAH WAWAH WAH WAH" which translates as "Enjoy your water!" I think you could pop it with a church key still usually but now the parents were involved and there would be that one parent afraid you would choke to death on the tab. If you were lucky you'd get a foam cup instead of a glass and be able to escape outside or to the basement!

 

[MaxStout]

Those pull rings on pop cans would occasionally snap off the rivet and we'd be stuck with an unopened can. But not for long. A poke from a screwdriver or nail would get it open.

Before pull rings you had to use a church key to open the can. Two places, 180 degrees apart. One for pouring, one to vent. Dad would open his Saturday can of Budweiser that way. Liquor stores would give you a free church key every time you bought beer. Can opener on one end, bottle opener on the other. We had a kitchen drawer full of them.

 

[BrewZer]

Those pull rings on pop cans would occasionally snap off the rivet and we'd be stuck with an unopened can. But not for long. A poke from a screwdriver or nail would get it open.

Before pull rings you had to use a church key to open the can. Two places, 180 degrees apart. One for pouring, one to vent. Dad would open his Saturday can of Budweiser that way. Liquor stores would give you a free church key every time you bought beer. Can opener on one end, bottle opener on the other. We had a kitchen drawer full of them.

I still use a church key on the mega-cans I occasionally buy between batches (to help me barbeque). Just a small hole opposite the tab hole, for venting...

 

[Willy]

My feet walking on the beach... Hope this is a fad that goes away. Still have scars between my toes from "finding one" in the sand. No. Just no.

 

[kevin58]

Sidebar story having to do with pull tabs... In the late 1970's my friends and I were driving across state to visit another friend attending Western Michigan University. We of course bought a case of beer for the frat party we had been invited to but being teens in the '70's we cracked a few to drink on the way. Someone hooked a pull tab onto the rearview mirror and then someone else added to it. Pretty soon we had a pull tab chain hanging from the rearview and by the time we got to campus that chain reached the floor of the car. When you hear someone talk about the stupid stuff they did in their youth that's just one of mine. I have no memory of the rest of the trip except for one of my buddies sleeping on the couch of the frat house lobby and every once in a while he would wake up enough to shout "Welcome to WiMU!" Don't drink and drive kids.

 

[Snuffy]

Sidebar story having to do with pull tabs... In the late 1970's my friends and I were driving across state to visit another friend attending Western Michigan University. We of course bought a case of beer for the frat party we had been invited to but being teens in the '70's we cracked a few to drink on the way. Someone hooked a pull tab onto the rearview mirror and then someone else added to it. Pretty soon we had a pull tab chain hanging from the rearview and by the time we got to campus that chain reached the floor of the car. When you hear someone talk about the stupid stuff they did in their youth that's just one of mine. I have no memory of the rest of the trip except for one of my buddies sleeping on the couch of the frat house lobby and every once in a while he would wake up enough to shout "Welcome to WiMU!" Don't drink and drive kids.

In a similar vein, a buddy and I attended a keg party in the back yard of a home in the late 70s. They had a band in the garage that was facing out the rollup door to the patio and it was quite the party with probably 40 kids. Eventually, you had that one frat guy who gets totally hammered and starts breaking stuff and yelling and walking around with a chair on his head and has to be babysat by his buddies. Finally they take him inside and he passes out on the basement couch. Anyway, a few weeks later and a different party and I see the same group of guys but without Chair Hat Guy. I asked how that ended up with him being such a liability. They said they didn't have to worry about him because he didn't run with them anymore. Apparently, they were sick of him harshing the buzz, so the next time he passed out, they pulled off his pants, packed his crack with Vaseline and then re-dressed him with his underwear on backwards. He never mentioned it but found himself another group to party with.
And uh... I think one of them had a dog named Pulltab.

 

[Broken Crow]

Since us old farts are getting nostalgic, here's mine: This thread made me first go to missing beer-cans in the 70's. Back then people just threw their garbage like cans and wrappers on the ground...cans weren't yet refundable, so if you had a use for them you just went out to the alley or park and picked some up. Certain types of kids who had the kind of fun that parents didn't like had a use for them and I'm wondering now if this was just a regional thing because I looked up "beer can mortar" and all the hits were things that shoot beer-cans.....this is not what I knew a beercan mortar to be:
The 70's cans were much firmer and had both top and bottom crimped on...a can-opener had trouble with the top because it was further reccessed than the bottom but you could still cut it if you tried, it was just a messy cut... So here's what we did: Take 6 beer cans; leave one with the bottom uncut and one with the bottom cut completely out and then with each can; cut 180° and fold that part inside and then cut 180° the opposite side of the other end. Get about 20 rolls of black electrical tape and tape them tightly together with the uncut bottom at one end and the fully cut bottom at the other with the baffles you've cut all lined up, drill a 1/4"-3/8" hole in the side of the bottom can though the inch thick tape layer; Put a 70's pop can (which fit perfectly inside the beer can) in one end and a few drops of lighter fluid or butane or instant starting fluid in the hole and hold a match or lighter to it..... on mine I made a hole with a triggered ether injecter and an electric BBQ lighter to maximize compression. ..oh: Tennis balls were also a perfect fit.
So was this regional, or does anyone else recall this Beercan Mortar?

 

[Snuffy]

Tennis balls were also a perfect fit.
So was this regional, or does anyone else recall this Beercan Mortar?

We made them using carbide powder. You poured water on it and it generated a flammable gas and then you shot either tennis balls or potatoes with it. Sometimes it blew up completely so lighting it was tricky. Lots of throwing matches at it.

 

[Willy]

Tennis balls were also a perfect fit.
So was this regional, or does anyone else recall this Beercan Mortar?

We often used potatoes in lieu of tennis balls for more compression and a tighter fit. Called them potato cannons.

I also used an old steel beer can to repair a section of rusted exhaust pipe on a 1962 VW microbus (yeah. With the split window and knobs for turning wipers). Worked great.

 

[Snuffy]

We often used potatoes in lieu of tennis balls for more compression and a tighter fit. Called them potato cannons.

I also used an old steel beer can to repair a section of rusted exhaust pipe on a 1962 VW microbus (yeah. With the split window and knobs for turning wipers). Worked great.

Did that on a '70 Gremlin. I hit one of those canon ball looking things that had a flame on top to mark a pothole in the road. Cut the can into a flat sheet and then wrapped the break in the pipe and used hose clamps to seal it in place. It was still like that 2 years later when I traded the car for a '70 DT 250.

 

[MaxStout]

Since us old farts are getting nostalgic, here's mine: This thread made me first go to missing beer-cans in the 70's. Back then people just threw their garbage like cans and wrappers on the ground...cans weren't yet refundable, so if you had a use for them you just went out to the alley or park and picked some up. Certain types of kids who had the kind of fun that parents didn't like had a use for them and I'm wondering now if this was just a regional thing because I looked up "beer can mortar" and all the hits were things that shoot beer-cans.....this is not what I knew a beercan mortar to be:
The 70's cans were much firmer and had both top and bottom crimped on...a can-opener had trouble with the top because it was further reccessed than the bottom but you could still cut it if you tried, it was just a messy cut... So here's what we did: Take 6 beer cans; leave one with the bottom uncut and one with the bottom cut completely out and then with each can; cut 180° and fold that part inside and then cut 180° the opposite side of the other end. Get about 20 rolls of black electrical tape and tape them tightly together with the uncut bottom at one end and the fully cut bottom at the other with the baffles you've cut all lined up, drill a 1/4"-3/8" hole in the side of the bottom can though the inch thick tape layer; Put a 70's pop can (which fit perfectly inside the beer can) in one end and a few drops of lighter fluid or butane or instant starting fluid in the hole and hold a match or lighter to it..... on mine I made a hole with a triggered ether injecter and an electric BBQ lighter to maximize compression. ..oh: Tennis balls were also a perfect fit.
So was this regional, or does anyone else recall this Beercan Mortar?

We would make those and launch tennis balls down the hallway of our college dorm. We'd hold the cannon in our hand, light it and shoot the ball toward the other end. The guys on the other end had their own cannon and would fire back. We dragged mattresses out in the hall to use as shields. We'd be shooting tennis balls at each other until the RA would find out and come up the stairs to tell us to knock it off. Good times.

 

[kurds_2408]

Super Bock!! They have pull tabs like this on tiny bottles. It’s the most popular beer in Portugal. It’s a better than average BMC type beer. My liquor store carries them and I buy them sometimes just for the memory of my trip there. Just had one last night.

 

[brewmanStan]

Those pull rings on pop cans would occasionally snap off the rivet and we'd be stuck with an unopened can. But not for long. A poke from a screwdriver or nail would get it open.

Before pull rings you had to use a church key to open the can. Two places, 180 degrees apart. One for pouring, one to vent. Dad would open his Saturday can of Budweiser that way. Liquor stores would give you a free church key every time you bought beer. Can opener on one end, bottle opener on the other. We had a kitchen drawer full of them.

Yeah, I remember my dad and uncles opening cans of Falstaff with a church key, and then later on, about the mid 60's, raving about the new pull tab cans. Unfortunately, we as a society are not responsible enough to have such convenience, and many of them eventually became responsible for an astronomical amount cut toes and feet (happened to me a couple of times), hence the pop-tab we have today. And yes MaxStout, we too ended up with drawer full of church keys. Still have about 8 or10 of 'em.