Plastic or Glass Bottles?

[terrym]

Can't believe how stingy some people are on bottling. Most people seem to spend decent money on ingredients, be it grains, hops, yeast or a good kit and are happy to splash the cash on equipment but are dead against decent bottles. You can get 50 new glass bottles and caps for under £30. The idea of using someone else's second hand bottles or using plastic bottles makes me feel queasy. Why would put all that effort into a home brew and stick it in a plastic bottle?

Its not stingy. The PET bottles I mostly use work fine for me, I dont want to move to all glass. And why should I feel quesy about using them? They are clean and sanitised when I get to re-use them. When they get a bit bashed up I chuck em out and they get replaced.
I would be more concerrned about drinking my beer from a dirty glass for which I take great care to avoid. What are your beer glasses like?

 

[Cheshire Cat]

How do people get so het up about bloody bottles?

 

[GerritT]

How do people get so het up about bloody bottles?

Because it's the finishing touch for some brewers. Brown glass fliptops here all the way, but I worked with caps and plastic too. They all work.

 

[Galena]

Staying firmly out of any arguments, you can bottle how you like but I personally like beer from a glass bottle. Brewing is a craft and I prefer the aesthetics and I actually enjoy bottling anticipating what I hope to be a great ale. I enjoy the process of opening the bottle with a bottle opener, seeing the little bit of gas off and pouring from glass bottle to glass.
Plastic bottles, whilst I would use them for drinking myself I would be unlikely to give one to somebody else, they just feel cheap like drinking pop.
I quite like drinking from the bottle but have stopped this habit since getting into brewing so that I can judge the beer a bit more.
Likewise I dislike beer out of cans

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Because it's the finishing touch for some brewers. Brown glass fliptops here all the way, but I worked with caps and plastic too. They all work.

But why are people falling out?

 

[GerritT]

But why are people falling out?

Some people are quite religious about it, it's okay. Same enthousiasm can happen when discussing yeasts, sugar additions, long or short boils, fast or slow cooling, is beer ale or lager, is extract brewing inferior, you name it.

 

[Scottyburto]

To put paid to the quality argument, most "new world wine" Is transported in massive plastic containers and bottled in Europe. Also most cask ales in pubs are in poly pin plastic casks, particularly Wetherspoons! Glass vs Plastic is largely marketing and perceived value like a lot of things in life.
Coca-Cola created Santa after all!

 

[dad_of_jon]

Why brew your own beer and then drink it from the bottle???? Surely you drink from a nice glass?

I was in a 'spoons pub years ago and saw they had duval - So I ordered one. I had to ask for a glass - how on earth can you drink out of that shape bottle. Unbelievable!

 

[RichK]

I personally think what you drink it out of is more important than what you store it in...

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I personally think what you drink it out of is more important than what you store it in...

I agree with that the right glass is very important.

 

[dad_of_jon]

I was commenting on the article you linked not your personal preferences. And I agree we all do stuff for different reasons. especially in homebrewing it seems. To quote a former member '10 homebrewers, 11opinions'.
And sometimes I use 2 litre PET bottles. You will probably need a serving jug like me. I find the beer keeps for a couple of days if I only take off one litre at the first serve. But I do not keep opening and closing them though

Terry, I found the comments in the article just as interesting as the article. I didn't think you were dissing my choices. It's interesting to to learn more about the things I don't know that much about and pet bottles are one. Where I really have a dislike is drinking from a plastic glass. So much so that we never went to the cardiff craft quarter when there was a cardiff football match at home, cos all the drinks were served in plastic 'glasses'.

I think I'll need to reduce my abv of some beers if I go to 2l or 1.5l pet - and I'll not be re-using them. I somehow need to get my mrs to drink more ginger beer to get hold of them. They'll only need a rinse and a star san ;-) Although as I think about it some more I prefer a variety of styles in a session so maybe I should just stick to 330 & 500ml glass bottles.

 

[terrym]

Where I really have a dislike is drinking from a plastic glass.

Oddly, although I use PET bottles, I too dislike drinking from plastic 'glasses'.
That said I rarely drink beer from a bottle, and never from a crown capped glass bottle, having seen the condition some bottles are stored under. It might be perceived as cool to be drinking from a bottle, but less so if you knew you were drinking rodent urine residue off the bottle opening

 

[kelper]

I've often drunk beer/lager from the can, especially outdoors in Aussie and other hot countries (Spain, south of France etc.. The small opening forms a 'vena contracta' which, in turn, causes the 'beer' to foam as it goes down your neck. When I came up from the boiler room, where temperatures reached 160F, rehydrating was classed as an emergency procedure. Oh, how we loved those VBs and Tooheys!

 

[KegThat]

Iv

Hey everyone,

I have decided that on my next brew, I am going to store half in a pressure barrel and the other half in bottles. I’m doing this so I can test which tastes better, for future reference.

I haven’t used bottles before, so could someone please advise me on whether I should use plastic or glass to start?

Thanks

i have used both but it’s nice to have glass as a little more professional in my opinion. Check out my website for some decently priced glass bottles KegThat.com

 

[dwhite60]

Re-use bottle caps? That's a new one on me.

At a couple of quid for 100 caps it doesn't seem worth the effort.

Didn't say I actually do this. I had read about someone else doing it on another forum. Wasn't about the cost, was about the environment.

 

[trummy]

I bottle 9 2 ltr reclaimed pop bottles - the rest of the beer in glass beer bottles. The advantage of the plastic bottles -its easy to fill them and they are light for carriage in the motorhome. The glass - with a decent label makes a handy gift and also keeps well in the beer cupboard. not noticed any drop off in beer quality either way

 

[Northern_Brewer]

To put paid to the quality argument, most "new world wine" Is transported in massive plastic containers and bottled in Europe. Also most cask ales in pubs are in poly pin plastic casks, particularly Wetherspoons! Glass vs Plastic is largely marketing and perceived value like a lot of things in life.
Coca-Cola created Santa after all!

Well both flexitanks and plastic casks are made of polythene not thin PET so aren't comparable - and there's certainly concerns about the effect on wine quality of transporting in flexitanks, although that's more to do with the lack of insulation.

And there's certainly some concerns about the airtightness of the Cooper screwcaps that don't apply to bulk wine or cask beer, although I hear they're not too bad if you retighten them a day later.

Trust me, if commercial brewers (at least those with some self-respect) thought that PET bottles (which are rather cheaper than glass) were good enough for beer, they would use them in preference to glass. A handful do but it's generally only those at the bottom of the market or in special situations like festivals etc. where the lack of shelflife is less of a problem.

Having been around the cellars of a fair few freehouses, I'd say it's probably less than a third of cask beer is in HDPE casks in my experience, but it does tend to depend on what breweries the pub uses and there may be regional differences - a brewery will tend to use either steel or HDPE, the more established ones tend to use (more expensive) steel.

 

[cushyno]

Brewing is a craft and I prefer the aesthetics and I actually enjoy bottling anticipating what I hope to be a great ale. I enjoy the process of opening the bottle with a bottle opener, seeing the little bit of gas off and pouring from glass bottle to glass.
Plastic bottles, whilst I would use them for drinking myself I would be unlikely to give one to somebody else

+1 to all of this Mate. You're on my wavelength :small

 

[Scottyburto]

Well both flexitanks and plastic casks are made of polythene not thin PET so aren't comparable - and there's certainly concerns about the effect on wine quality of transporting in flexitanks, although that's more to do with the lack of insulation.

And there's certainly some concerns about the airtightness of the Cooper screwcaps that don't apply to bulk wine or cask beer, although I hear they're not too bad if you retighten them a day later.

Trust me, if commercial brewers (at least those with some self-respect) thought that PET bottles (which are rather cheaper than glass) were good enough for beer, they would use them in preference to glass. A handful do but it's generally only those at the bottom of the market or in special situations like festivals etc. where the lack of shelflife is less of a problem.

Having been around the cellars of a fair few freehouses, I'd say it's probably less than a third of cask beer is in HDPE casks in my experience, but it does tend to depend on what breweries the pub uses and there may be regional differences - a brewery will tend to use either steel or HDPE, the more established ones tend to use (more expensive) steel.

Id say your probably right about the big cask breweries using steel such as Timothy Taylor's wychwood, black sheep, marstons, etc but the smaller ones definitely lean towards poly pin.

The PE in HDPE and PET is the same thing Polyethylene . The HD is high density or thicker and the T is Terephthalate.

https://www.raepak.com/hdpe-bottles-vs-pet-bottles/
Whilst I agree I prefer my beer in a bottle, I'm leaning more to plastic for time saving. I only question whether it is a perceived value through years of marketing. It wasn't too long ago that Heineken tried it on with the Aluminum "bottle".

 

[Mavroz]

Glass bottles all the way for me.
They are free, easy to wash and sanitise.
Use a bench capper and it is probably quicker than screwing caps on plastic bottles.
Use 1 X plastic 250ml lemonade bottle per brew to check carbonation.
Bob's your uncle!