Favorite Beer you buy to save the bottles?

Yakima 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I really only use three types of bottles, Deschutes is my favorite for the 12oz, I will use some new belgium too. But I have been collecting the 22oz Stone bottles, those are my favorite and they are also going to be housing my first APA I have brewed.
 
mrhead said:
Heineken/Heineken Light have good bottles. They use plastic labels which peel right off after soaking in water for an hour or so; and they leave no glue residue of any kind.
Click to expand...

I have never been able to get any plastic label off, no matter how long the soak. So I don't try.

I had a bunch of corona and heiny bottles saved up that I just put Apfelwein in (since they are clear/green).
 
Hobgoblin ftw. It seems like their bottles are twice as thick as ordinary brown bottles. Breckenridge 471 IPA bottles are sweet too. Awesome IPA, and no worries about getting the sticky label glue off since its all painted on.
 
fratermus said:
I have never been able to get any plastic label off, no matter how long the soak. So I don't try.
Click to expand...

I've been fighting this a lot lately...6 bottles at a time...Fill with the hottest water you can find. When all 6 are full, start peeling the label from the first one you filled. Start at a top corner, then work your way across and pull the whole thing DOWN! Most of the sticky will come with. Then a 24 hour HOT soak with 2 scoops of Oxy clean in a cooler full of bottles filled with HOT water. Then a quick scrub with a green and yellow sponge...good to go.
Fill the bottles with hot water and try not to get any oxyclean in them, as it is a pain in the Winkey to rinse.
For the super sticky spots, Acetone and a paper towel works well
 
If you label your own it's a bit tricky to make one that fits, but Guinness bottles work very well. Draught bottles have plastic that can be cut off very easily, and you can remove the widget with a pair of needle nose pliers much easier than I ever would've thought. The widget comes right out when you have the least bit of grip on the end. Extra Stout bottles also de-label in water pretty easily, and have a nice shape.
And Guinness is tasty
 
Limited Visibility said:
I really only use three types of bottles, Deschutes is my favorite for the 12oz, I will use some new belgium too. But I have been collecting the 22oz Stone bottles, those are my favorite and they are also going to be housing my first APA I have brewed.
Click to expand...

I came in here to say Deschutes bottles are my favorite, too. Great beer plus I really like the hop bine relief around the top of the bottle (great for IPAs). I also cherish my New Belgium bottles, but that's mostly b/c i now live East of the Mississippi and can't get them any more.

I still buy a lot of craft beer to try new things and revisit old favorites, so obtaining bottles has never been a problem, but I with the exceptions above I just like hanging onto plain, dark brown, long necks, most of which now come from Great Lakes or Bluegrass Brewing.

Also, my brother in law has been saving his alu. bud select bottles for me. As soon as I get a benchcapper I look for to using those for camping.
 
Sam Adams aren't bad at all to use. I also like using Dogfish Head
 
aoverturff said:
Most of my beer purchases are based on whether I can re-use the bottles or not. (I feel the need to support Texan brews).
Click to expand...

This is why I try and use bottles from Real Ale Brewing Co. in Blanco. Plus, the labels come off very easily with a soak in warm water.

I also like to use Sierra Nevada bottles 'cause the beer is very tasty.
 
I'm sure it's been mentioned but, Samuel Smith are the BEST pint bottles on the planet! Twice the thickness it seems and just dark as night. Great lines as well.
 
gwood said:
I'm sure it's been mentioned but, Samuel Smith are the BEST pint bottles on the planet! Twice the thickness it seems and just dark as night. Great lines as well.
Click to expand...

My LHBS had a used bottle sale to clear out the back room before big brew day, and I scored 3 cases of old Straub and Stoney's Pint bottles in heavy duty Carling Black Label boxes for dirt cheap. They're really thick glass. Since I doubt that Straub's bottled in pints anytime in the last 2 years or so, I'd say they were from the 80's or 90's...
 
I find myself buying bottles with the intent on reusing them, I buy Sam Adams. I like the six pack holders as well.
 
I've just started with homebrewing, but I've chosen New Glarus bottles. I find that the bottles seem thick and sturdy, and the beer inside of them is delicious.
 
My favs are Trader Joe's beers made by Gordon Biersch, as well as GB beers(particularly their WinterBock). Lables come off quite easy, and no imprints for sending to comps, and damn good beer inside. I miss my Yuengling pint returnables I had while back in college - 16 oz beats 12 oz anyday, and came in a heavy-duty hinge top box.
 
I like Pepsi bottles. :D
balllock.jpg
 
Smithwick's.

Though, I primarily use 1L EZ Cap amber bottles, but a 12 pack of them leaves some need for smaller bottles.
 
I like Sam Adam's bottles. Very easy to remove the labels. I HATE Bell's bottles. The labels are impossible to remove. Great Lakes bottles also use a glue that is easy to remove.
 
I get bombers with moderate frequency so I can build a stock of the larger bottles, but it seems every brewery uses heavy laminated or plastic labels with lots of glue. They are quite tough to remove but I have yet to try very hot water and peeling before the OxyClean soak. Usually seems worth the effort since I always get good beer in them.
 
I love Schlenkerla's Rauchbier (their Helles is one I would kill for). The bottles are also perfect for homebrew.
 
I like the Guinness Draught bottles. Like the beer and the label is not glued on and easy to remove. The little widget comes out easily with needle-nose pliers too.
 
my favorite bottles are paulaner(sp) bottles the label comes right off and they make pretty good beer. right behind that is sam adams and i get a lot of these because me and the gf both like them i need to double to triple my collection though if anyonehas any extra feel free to throw them my way
 
mine is becks. cheap, good and the labels come off easy. I've heard they do something to the green glass to help prevent skunking, unlike other green bottles. also the sweetwater amber bottles.
 
I've been storing up Grolsch bottles for my first batch (soon to come). It's not the best beer but for the price of empty ones vrs full ones I'll drink it and end up with the bottles.

I"m wondering why more people do not prefer them? I've yet to bottle, but the self capping really appeals to me? Is it a prefernece or am I missing something?

cz
 
Bass and Becks Amber if I am buying. For free I get clear Barq's rootbeer bottles from a local restuarant. Remember they are free.
 
24oz Sierra Nevada Harvest Ale, Pale Ale, etc. I'm currently trying to replace all my 12oz bottles with 24oz, and I like the 24oz better than the 22oz. Plus, it's good beer on top of that! :mug:
 
I like the local (downtown) Diamond Bear bottles. Looks like a Sam Adams without the writing and their labels just slide off after a couple minutes in hot water. The Presidential IPA they make is also really nice.
 
Magic Hat bottles are the choice here. The beer is great and they seem to use an economy of glue so the labels peel off with ease, so much so that my 3-year-old daughter does the peeling for me (under close supervision, of course). After a short soak in Oxyclean, the glue residue rinses right off.
 
Hofbrau bottles are great. The labels just fall off with no glue residue, they're green but I don't mind. Plus the beer = tasty.
 
I had it in my head that "regular" bottles (pop top) were not suitable for reuse by home brewers who were bottle conditioning/priming. Is this not the case? If I've been mistaken then I've tossed hundreds of suitable bottles. I have only ever kept the thick glass bottles from things like Young's and Schlenkerla. The beer in those is not cheap!

I might actually consider 12oz bottles if I were just getting them for free with my regular beer selection.
 
Most any bottle with a pop top (not screw top) can be used successfully. Also, some people actually use screwtops, but I wouldn't, simply because I can get a vast quantity of pop tops anyway. Some of the bottles I've used, like Bass, look pretty thin, but seem to work fine. None broken yet. That's probably the thinnest bottle I've used.

A new favorite of mine is the Wytchwood bottle. It's larger, and more suitable for summer beers, IMO, but very stout and nice-looking. I bottled some Wit recently with those.
 
Love the Sierra Nevada 24 oz. bottles and I pick up a couple every time I go to the beer store.

Last time I was there I saw Anchor has 22 oz bombers in a short squatty bottle shaped like their 12 ouncers! If they are pop tops I'd love love love to replace all my tall 22 ouncers that don't fit in the fridge well.
 
Red Hook bottles. Labels are a breeze to remove and they have awesome on-glass textures. Plus a nice Red Hook ESB after a hard day's work is just too good to pass up.
 
gwood said:
I'm sure it's been mentioned but, Samuel Smith are the BEST pint bottles on the planet! Twice the thickness it seems and just dark as night. Great lines as well.
Click to expand...

Oh, yeah, and the clear glass really does an excellent job of skunking the hell out of your beer...:p
 
I love those 10oz Belgian bottles. There's just something so noble about them. And sometimes I only want 10oz, but I don't wanna hit the kegs. The obvious problem, however, is that they're normally reserved for pricey Belgians...Rochefort et al.
 
gwood said:
I'm sure it's been mentioned but, Samuel Smith are the BEST pint bottles on the planet! Twice the thickness it seems and just dark as night. Great lines as well.
Click to expand...

I just recently recycled a bunch of Oatmeal Stout bottles I had since I felt I didn't have the patience to get the foil off them.
Have you found an easy method?
 

Similar threads

F
dry hop experiment in a PET bottle
Replies
4
Views
597
fluketamer
F
A
Primo Bottles for Wine Aging
Replies
31
Views
1K
whoaru99
W
M
Haven't brewed in 15 years!
Replies
13
Views
1K
madscientist451
madscientist451
hunchonbeer
Counter Pressure Bottle Filling
Replies
6
Views
2K
bracconiere
bracconiere
Brettgvdp
Room temp. vs fridge
Replies
11
Views
1K
jdauria
jdauria

Latest posts

Back
Top