Just cleaned out my home brew room and came out with at least a case and a half of old bombers I have saved or used through the years but haven’t touched in a long time. It’s sad to see them go, but I still have at least two cases of good bottles either in use or ready to go. (I keg too much nowadays anyhow). I just can’t throw out good bottles after I’ve enjoyed a nice, commercial craft brew – particularly the German half liter bottles. Anyone else have the same problem? Can’t quite move yourself to pitch a good commercial bottle directly into the recycling bin?
After starting my hobby with bottling bombers and after starting to keg and after saving enough 12 ouncers to make one last bottled batch, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll be kegging full time. But once per year I will make a special batch and bomber them.
So yes, I’ll save any larger than 12 ounce bottle for potential refilling. NOT 12 ouncers any further… Kuz it’s a PITA.
I keep a crap load of 12’s & 6’s on hand for BW & other real strong brews. I have a butt load of those giant Bud Brewmaster bottles. they were given to me & I’ve never used them. just can’t bring myself to throw them though.
I use to collect and display one of every beer that I had tasted.
I put these on top of the cabinets in my brew shop I had a heck of a collection all the way around.
One day I walked in and door shut kind of hard all of a sudden I had 3 or 4 bottles fall and hit me and break on the floor, after that it was no problem placing all of them in the recycle bin.
Now I have 144 tap handles replacing them and they are fastened down so I know the won’t fall.
I’m a bit of a bottle hoarder. I still have a couple of people saving ber and wine bottles for me, even though I probably have ten cases of each (empty, not full). I have a nice set of German 1/2L bottles, a bunch of short 12ozers ala Summit and Anchor Steam, a nice bunch of 20oz bombers, a couple dozen Belgian bombers, a few cases of champagne bottles for sours and cider, and a couple dozen 1.5L flip-tops I use like growlers. And yet I keg most of my stuff.
The key to all this is that my wife will scrape the labels and clean the bottles. What a woman! She does like her beer and wine though.
I’m with you, man. When I first started brewing, I found myself recruiting buddies to help swill down two cases of Old Milwaukee returnables so I could bottle a batch. I think that started me on a path toward “bottle insecurity” where now I have about 30 cases of 12 oz bottles, at least 50 bombers, and a bunch of green grolsch and larger brown bail-tops.
And, like tomsawyer, I keg pretty much all of my beers! I think I’ll be getting rid of some bottles very soon, and I’ll keep what I need to bottle up some BW’s and RIS’s.
On the other hand (now I’m sounding like a true hoarder), I could keep them and then when I bottle beers from the tap for friends, I’ll just tell them to recycle the empties when they’re done. Yeah, that’s it… :lol:
I’ve been going through a bottling phase lately. I have 2 empty kegs & bottled my last 4 batches. gonna bottle the batch I have in primary right now too. got a 10g batch of steam planned for the kegs though.
Me too. I have about 500, but they’re in boxes right now. Not to mention glasses, t-shirts, signs, pretty much any thing beer related.
Last move I gave away 10 cases of 12s and 22s, still have enough to bottle 20 gals…
We just had a homebrew shop open in the area (yeehaw!) and I think I’ll tke a bunch of bottle over there for recycling.
I’m always gifting or entering in comps. At my house it seems like a never ending cycle of bottles in bottles out.
