Dogfish Head Brewery - Homebrewer's Friend

[PavlovsCat]

Thanks to DFH for applying their labels with water soluble glue, AND of course their tasty beer. Whenever I'm soaking bottles for label removal, theirs are the first one to come off. They can only be soaking for ten minutes and come right off, and you don't have to scrub off the glue. I wonder what they use. I might have to e-mail them and ask.

 

[dstar26t]

Victory is also good. Moylan's bombers are the worst that I've seen.

 

[wrangler]

sierra's come off pretty easily as well

 

[TurboBrew]

I also like that their bottles are unmarked brown standard 12oz bottles. Perfect for competitions. Especially since I enter so many One day...

 

[john from dc]

a quick search didn't turn it up but somebody on here actually found a sam adams bottle in a dogfish head sixpack. which implies that they reuse bottles themselves. which is also awesome, imo.

 

[Sigafoos]

Saranac's are the worst. I've started buying beer based on what I know comes off easily (and besides, Saranac is good but not great).

 

[Dougan]

Yes, Rogue, I give a thumbs up to your beers, but a thumbs down to your labeling techniques.

 

[chumprock]

Saranac's are the worst. I've started buying beer based on what I know comes off easily (and besides, Saranac is good but not great).

I ended up returning a few cases of Sarnac bottles after a hellish night of label soaking/peeling/scrubbing. I swear they are attached with mighty putty.

Ithaca and Southerntier are much more forgiving though.

 

[SumnerH]

Anchor Steam labels just float off after an hour long soak. And they're a cool shape.

I'm trying to amass different styles of bottles (a 5-gallon batch worth of each), I've got Grolsch swing-tops and Sierra stubbies and regular brown longer-necks (mine are Flying Dog--painful glue), and I'm working on Anchor now.

 

[user 22118]

+1 to Moylans labels being the devil. Gordon Biersch makes the easiest labels too (and they make beer for a bunch of people).

 

[Boondoggie]

I like Redhook for that very reason... they fall right off soaking for 10min.

 

[Sarrsipius]

Sam Adams labels are not bad. Either are Shiner or Bells. They all come off after about 15 minutes in a hot PBW soak. The worst ones around central indiana that I've found are from Barley Island Brewery. Great beer but you CAN NOT get those labels off. They are paper covered with a layer of plastic and then glued on with some kind of rubber cement. Soaking does nothing for them. I've also found Three Floyds labels disintigrate and make a huge mess out of my sink. I too have found the beer I buy is partially influenced by how easy the labels come off. Of course, I still buy the occasional 6 pack of gumball head because it is damn good.

 

[Donthoseme]

Smuttynose not only makes an AMAZING IPA, they also use a milk based glue that comes off SUPER easy. try it you won't turn back.

 

[PavlovsCat]

Thumbs down to all you breweries out there that paint on the label. I.E. Rogue's big bottles. I used a razor blade window scraper, but the paint gets stuck in the little seams and imperfections. What a PITA. But the big bottles were half off in my local beer store. What to do, what to do.....I could just use their big Dead Guy bottles to bottle my own Dead Guy.

 

[Duckfoot]

I think that Atlanta Brewing Company uses Satan's sperm to adhere labels to the bottles, then laminates over the whole thing with epoxy resin followed by a clear bulletproof glaze... Once you get the shiny layer off, it only takes a couple of weeks in an Oxyclean solution for them to break down to the point the are like trying to scape 50 year old caulk out of the bathroom used in the movie Saw....

 

[SumnerH]

Thumbs down to all you breweries out there that paint on the label..

I haven't tried it but a lot of people say that soaking overnight in StarSan takes the paint right off.

 

[BioBeing]

I think that Atlanta Brewing Company uses Satan's sperm to adhere labels to the bottles, then laminates over the whole thing with epoxy resin followed by a clear bulletproof glaze... Once you get the shiny layer off, it only takes a couple of weeks in an Oxyclean solution for them to break down to the point the are like trying to scape 50 year old caulk out of the bathroom used in the movie Saw....

This sounds like the Lazy Magnolia Brewery in MS. Their Pecan ale is great, but the bottle disintegrates before the label does.

 

[SteveM]

1. I love the Rogue bottles!

2. Pete's Wicked Ale are the worst for getting labels off!

 

[SkinnyShamrock]

Victory is also good.

Amen to that. You look at them after soaking and they fall off.

 

[blackwaterbrewer]

i never have a label problem with Corny Kegs!

-sorry, i couldn't resist. to me, kegging is to bottling as using a calculator is to doing long division. but i respect the bottlers. there are many advantages.

 

[Dubcut]

i never have a label problem with Corny Kegs!

-sorry, i couldn't resist. to me, kegging is to bottling as using a calculator is to doing long division. but i respect the bottlers. there are many advantages.

Now that my first keg set up is in the mail, I got to say, feel no differently. Stone Brewery graphs their labels on with a blow torch I think. Bottles suck, hard. Though I will miss bringing a 6 pack in the car for cross town market research... well not that much.

 

[danorocks17]

Sam Adams labels are not bad. Either are Shiner or Bells. They all come off after about 15 minutes in a hot PBW soak. The worst ones around central indiana that I've found are from Barley Island Brewery. Great beer but you CAN NOT get those labels off. They are paper covered with a layer of plastic and then glued on with some kind of rubber cement. Soaking does nothing for them. I've also found Three Floyds labels disintigrate and make a huge mess out of my sink. I too have found the beer I buy is partially influenced by how easy the labels come off. Of course, I still buy the occasional 6 pack of gumball head because it is damn good.

every sam adams bottle except the boston lager is pretty easy. I gotta disagree with Barley Island beer being great. I went to the brew pub and got the sampler and I was not impressed at all. Everything just seemed ok to me. Maybe I should give it another shot.:rockin:

 

[jerrysfinger]

Thanks to DFH for applying their labels with water soluble glue, AND of course their tasty beer. Whenever I'm soaking bottles for label removal, theirs are the first one to come off. They can only be soaking for ten minutes and come right off, and you don't have to scrub off the glue. I wonder what they use. I might have to e-mail them and ask.

I thought the same. 60min easy to clean them. Soaked with Cascade dishwashing powder overnight and slide right off. I had used Seirra Nevadas that where easy too but, last batch I soaked must have been old ones or something. Like industrial glue on them, getting tossed. Newcastles came off easy also. Magic Hat HIPA another easy one.

 

[BenT1]

A brewer friend of mine tipped me off to a good, simple trick for getting labels off. Pour a little ammonia in with your water. I soak them in a five gal. bucket a few days, and have yet to find a label that could withstand it. Even Saranac.

 

[uglytunasaloona]

I'm still relatively new at this but I don't have a problem with removing the labels. I soak them in hot water for an hour or so. Most of the time that it is not enough to loosen the entire label. I scrape the bottle with a single edge razor scarper and then use the abrasive side of a scrubbing spnge to get the rest of the junk off. Someone said that they returned Saranac bottles. I just finished scraping a six pack. I agree not a great beer but I wanted to compare their Irish Red to mine.