The sacrifices we have to make !

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baggyray

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I've recently started my first brew,and I've had to look at the best way of procuring some decent bottles ( my local boozer is not an option BTW :whistle: ).
With new bottles costing around 55/60p each,I decided to buy bottled beer,thus killing 2 birds with one stone :hmm:
I trawled the shops and found a cracking offer in Morrisons...4 bottles for £5.50,this includes some top notch beers..Victory,Bishops Finger,Hobgoblin and loads more,so I bought a variety.
I've now got a paltry 10 days or so to "empty" 36 of the aforementioned brews :shock:
It's a tough job...but someone has to do it :cheers:
 
Hobgoblin bottles are a ******* to re-use if you've got the lever-type hand capper. Bench cappers should work with just about anything. If you've got the ‘whack-it-with-a-mallet’ type, wear gloves and goggles because they are an accident waiting to happen.
 
It's always worth buying beer that comes in decent bottles.

You want brown bottles for a start as they don't let the light in, light causes bad tastes in beer. I always try and get heavy weight bottles as well, Fullers and Thwaites are both very good, there are others that are good as well.

Avoid Wychwood bottles unless you have a bench capper as you can't cap them with a normal 2 lever capper.
 
I'd seen mention on here before about avoiding Wychwood bottles,so I left them alone,pity really,as Hobgblin is one of my favourites :(
BTW Moley,I visited the stall on Blackheath market that you mentioned,and I must say,his prices are a really competitive :thumb:
 
I know this is not helpful in the short term - but

if you visit Germany by car I would consider buying one or more crates of beer (space permitting), I go for the half litre bottles, a crate of 20 can be had for as little as 9 Euros which includes return deposit. So you get the beer in decent bottles and fairly standard crates that can easily be stacked.

Still drinking the Hansa Export Pils which was 9€50.....
 
Personally it's well worth buying a bench capper as they're not hugely expensive and the labels just float off the Hobgoblin bottles!
 
If your going down the buy it, drink it, re fill it way of getting bottles keep an eye on the offers at Lidl they often have offers on Shepherd Neame beer's. I know there clear bottles but if you keep them in the dark they are no problem :thumb:

Nice Avatar by the way Ray. You a Greyhound lover or just liked the art work.
 
snail59 said:
Nice Avatar by the way Ray. You a Greyhound lover or just liked the art work.

Hi snail
I'm a greyhound nut,I've got three retired racers that I adopted from the Retired Greyhound Trust,best dogs in the world IMO :lol: :lol:

There's a Lidl nearby,I'll keep an eye open :thumb:
 
baggyray said:
Hi snail
I'm a greyhound nut,

we only have the one
2.jpg



But agree they are great animals.


We got ours from a local trainer who does rescue as well.

baggyray said:
There's a Lidl nearby,I'll keep an eye open :thumb:

Just go to the Lidl web site and keep checking the Sensational Deals section once a week.
LIDL

they have Bulmers (original or Pear) Cider this week at £1.39 and that's a proper pint (568ml) bottle. Labels come off easy as well :D
 
keith1664 said:
Personally it's well worth buying a bench capper as they're not hugely expensive and the labels just float off the Hobgoblin bottles!
snail59 said:
keep an eye on the offers at Lidl they often have offers on Shepherd Neame beers.
But they are all still short-measured ‘Euro pints’, so you'll need to clean and disinfect 6 more for a standard brew length.

Come on folks, if you asked for a pint in a British pub and they only poured you 7/8ths of a glass, you wouldn't stand for it there :twisted:
 
i wish my bottles were 500ml rather than a pint.

no matter how slowly i pour, i always get a decent size head, especialy with my fizzy stuff, and i have to stop pouring before my glass is full, wait for head to die down, then top up. This however means i have to tile, upright, and tilt again my bottle, meaning the sediment is mixed in.

grrr. i have to go to the trouble of tipping into a jug, then tipping that into myglass. Moan. :?
 
What you need SC is one of those oversized lined pint pots used back in the day when some breweries dispensed beers using a measured half pint pumped to your glass with electrickery. I presume they were a northern thing as you got an inch of head in the glass and near enough a pint of liquid as well, southerners wouldn't have needed them.
 
Runwell-Steve said:
Avoid Wychwood bottles unless you have a bench capper as you can't cap them with a normal 2 lever capper.

I only realised this on my second brew when i had about 20 Wychwood bottles. Bad idea! got so fustrated with not being able to cap them.
 
Presumably Crabby's Ginger Beer bottles are ok to use as I seem to drink a lot of the stuff and have been saving the bottles :cheers:
 
BrightBrew said:
Presumably Crabby's Ginger Beer bottles are ok to use as I seem to drink a lot of the stuff and have been saving the bottles :cheers:

I have a load of those as the wife is quite partial to a drop.
Tw*t to get the labels off tho!
 
keith1664 said:
I have a load of those as the wife is quite partial to a drop.
Tw*t to get the labels off tho!
Oi! Language :nono:

I don't know those and have never bought any, but have you tried filling the bottles with hot water?

Get the temperature right and sometimes the labels peel off and take the glue with them :thumb:
Other times they really are a tw@ and the glue stays on the bottle. ;)
 
Crabbies and Aspells labels are nigh on impossible to remove. I long ago gave up and threw about 12 of them into the recycling!
 
What you want is some label remover.

We use it in the IT trade and comes in very handy for those stubborn bottle labels.

I think screwfix do it, smells of oranges.

You obviously have to wash the bottles well to get rid of any residual smell.

Terry.
 

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