wine in beer bottles

[user 9797]

i know it's not the ideal way of doing things, but is there a real honest-to-goodness reason not to use beer bottles for wine? the carbonation is higher in beer, so pressure shouldn't be a problem, right? i had a hard time tracking down reasons not to do this. the plan is to bottle a nice zinfandel in a short while, and though i have boatloads of extra beer bottles, i'm short on wine ones.

 

[Yooper]

No, it's fine. I think it's more of a "snob" issue for young wines. For wines you are going to age, you have to do the bottles and corks but for young drinking wines, you can do it in beer bottles. I've even bottled some in Grolsch bottles!

 

[david_42]

Use the oxygen absorbing caps and it should be fine. Most home mead makers use beer bottles. More and more commercial wine makers are going to metal caps to eliminate corkage problems, like breakage, leaking, etc.

 

[david_the_greek]

I just bottled my apfelwein in beer bottles.... although I guess its kind of more a cider. Its still a wine in some ways and it seems to be alright. Glass is glass. As the others have said, it seems that if you'd like to store and age some of those bottles long term that a cork would be best.

 

[user 9797]

ah, these are great - thanks everyone! i couldn't think of a reason why it wouldn't work in theory, but couldn't find any reference about it. let the wine ferment away then, i've got bottles to put it in.

 

[CBBaron]

I'm don't understand why you can't age a wine in beer bottles. Can anyone point me to a good article discussing this or explain it to me. It seems that beer bottles will hold their seal for years without loosing pressure. So there should be no problem with O2 getting into a wine. I understand the snob factor but I tend to not worry about appearances and just concern myself with functionality.

Craig