Awkward situation

[prince4118]

I had a bit of an awkward situation today when my brother came around to try my newest brew and when he opened it his words were "what the heck this is the weirdest beer Iv ever tried but I like it tastes a lot like Apple" I just looked at him thinking he must have the weirdest taste in the world because I had tried it earlier and it was nothing like the explained so I tried his to find out what he was talking about and to my surprise it was very fruity just like apple and I then realized it was a cider I had brewed I didn't look at what was written on the lid as an easy mistake from looking at the bottle as you can see from the photo on the left is beer and on the right is cider

 

[501irishred]

Time to join us in the "show us your label" thread!

 

[prince4118]

Oh by the way left is beer right is cider and I have no special labeling way I just abbreviate on the lid

 

[Hello]

Yeah, I'd start some sort of labeling system. Even painter's tape if you don't want to have to take off the labels again later.

 

[unionrdr]

I usually mark the caps with a sharpie beofre they go in the fridge. But designing labels for gifts is half the fun!

 

[prince4118]

I write the date of bottle on the lid so then I can look and corrispond that date to exactly what's on it in another book

 

[Homercidal]

Pour both of them together in a glass...


BAM!


Red's Apple Ale!

 

[smccarter]

Different types of bottles, different colored caps, and a spreadsheet to keep track of everything.... ie...
tall brown orange | English Bitter
short brown silver | Belgian Trippel
Grolsch green | Ale - Munich, etc...

My goal is to speed the process up... Labeling everything would add time to the process... but I do like the idea of labeling, even with tape or a sharpie. I'm just too darned lazy to do it.

 

[KurtB]

The even easier solution is to not bottle the beer in clear bottles.

Light will not skunk the cider, but it will skunk the beer.

Then come up with a system to track what the beer is that is in the dark brown bottle (like code numbers on the cap or labels on the bottle).

 

[paithian]

I use the colored round stickers for garage sales or whatever and just write the name and date bottled

 

[AmandaK]

Batch number in sharpie on the cap is my way of staying sane. Friends and family have a cheat sheet.

 

[prince4118]

I always bottle at least one beer in a clear bottle so I can see how the clearing up is coming along and how much sediment I have and stuff plus all my bottle go into boxes so there pitch black till they go into the fridge

 

[501irishred]

I always bottle at least one beer in a clear bottle so I can see how the clearing up is coming along and how much sediment I have and stuff plus all my bottle go into boxes so there pitch black till they go into the fridge

Same here. One in clear bottle, and one in PET bottle (carb indicator).

 

[prince4118]

Same here. One in clear bottle, and one in PET bottle (carb indicator).

exactly the same here

 

[mojo2008]

I use a grease marker to write the batch number on the cap. Sharpie sometimes gets washed off if the bottles are put on ice while the grease mark stays.

 

[MindenMan]

Different types of bottles, different colored caps, and a spreadsheet to keep track of everything.... ie...
tall brown orange | English Bitter
short brown silver | Belgian Trippel
Grolsch green | Ale - Munich, etc...

My goal is to speed the process up... Labeling everything would add time to the process... but I do like the idea of labeling, even with tape or a sharpie. I'm just too darned lazy to do it.

I do exactly the same idea you have, tall, brown, silver: Chocolate Porter
short, brown, red: Apricot Ale. If I have not enough of a particular color cap, or, if I have a boatload of one color cap: short, brown, blue is one beer, tall, brown, blue is another. And if I really have a brain fart about caps, it's tall, brown , blue with an X is, well you get it. I recently had two different beers in the same color bottle, and the same color cap. For a while there it was "guess what it is by color", so I am now so anal about it, my current system uses month, year, color etc.

 

[RM-MN]

I've been using Beer Labelizer. (http://www.beerlabelizer.com/) It makes it easy to keep track of what beer I have and it looks sharp when I give beer away too. The basic labels are free but the cost to upgrade to the advanced labels is minimal. I use a glue stick to put the labels on the bottle but others have used milk. Milk makes the ink run if your printer uses a water based ink though.

 

[hungry4hops]

http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/112433/Avery-Removable-InkjetLaser-Multipurpose-Round-Labels/

I like to label the caps I have never mixed up my brews by doing it this way, and its cheap! They come in a couple different colors too!

 

[unionrdr]

I went to the lhbs for label paper to use with beer labelizer's print function. It sets up the right number of labels per page & prints them real well. Ink jet labels don't run so far.