When convincing others to share, depending on who your friends are, pouring out of plastic sometimes raises questions about quality, as many people have never had booze out of plastic and are weirded out.
That being said the stove top pasteurizing bunch usually does at least one plastic bottle.
Not at all. They make Brown plastic PET bottles specifically for home brewing to eliminate this issue with light. It's really no different than using glass except don't make the mistake of putting them through the dishwasher unless you want your bottles to shrink and deform.
No, not in my experience. Even with cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, the root beer smell stays and imparts a root beer flavor to beer (and water, when I've forced carbed water in that bottle to make homemade club soda). I can use the green 7 UP bottles, or other soda bottles, and the soda smell goes away- but never root beer.
I have used plastic bottles many times, they work well. I've used them for cider, mead, wine, and beer. As has been mentioned though, you do have to be careful with light exposure for beer, unless you are using dark colored bottles.
Interesting. I'm considering using green 16 oz gingerale bottles for my next cider batch. I could chill them in the fridge and carbonate them right in the bottle with a carbonator cap. Would eliminate losing CO2 from pouring into a glass bottle.
If you use plastic bottles you have to drink the cider soonish. I used them but found after a few months the cider was starting to oxidise. I have tried the same with wine, a total disaster, after a year the wine was undrinkable from oxidation. I learnt my lesson, once you get enough glass bottles you can reuse them every year.
As per my opinion Beer in plastic can accumulate harmful products I’d rather buy beer in glass, not in plastic. Glass is more safe and gives better taste, I don’t want to take any risk.
I use 1L plastic soda bottles for beer and cider all the time. Never had a problem. I use 2L bottles occasionally, but that's a lot of cider or 6% beer for one serving.
I also use 750ml fliptops (French sparkling lemonade) but I'm really careful about light exposure when I use one for beer. Wine always goes in glass bottles.