Best/Worst Beer Label Removals!!!

Petrus always floats off and I usually toss founders because I always have to scrub multiple times...

 

odells as well come off easily, at the mere idea of becoming wet

 

I second this. There have only been a handful of bottles I couldn't get the labels off with Oxyclean Free.

 

Silk screened bottles are the worst . Second worst is plastic sticker types. Paper with a couple strips of glue are the best.

For the barleywine and baltic porter I bottle up and apply my own labels each year, I usually use SN bottles - soak them in hot pbw solution and let sit overnight, rinse the next day.

For everything else - giving beer to friends and family or bottling to empty a keg, I don't even bother removing the label. Sometimes I will cover the label up with duct tape or paint if its going to a non-regular "customer".

 

I dont know why I didnt think of this before but the type of labels Jester King uses are a nightmare to remove, especially if you want to save the label. Maybe Im doing it wrong? TG's Kombucha labels are the same way.

 

Guinness bottles! You just cut them right off. Problem is they are 11.2 oz and you have to know someone that drinks a lot of Guinness (luckily I have some in-laws that fit that description).

 

It's been mentioned already, but RR bottles can go to hell. Oxyclean Free, Goo b Gone, boiling water? Fail. F' that glue they use!

 

By FAR the EASIEST beer labels to remove are those on Trappist bottles, really. a good soak and they just fall off on their own

 

Black Boss porter from Poland are great 16 oz bottles. The labels come right off and the beer is cheap and REALLY good.
And, if you know anyone that can drink Beck's Saphire, they have super dark bottles (almost black) and the labels come right off.

 

Jack's Abby labels are so easy it seems almost planned. Plus they are the awesome looking 16.9oz german bottles. Their beer is also a tremendous value at the price point, but back to homebrewing talk.

 

Troegg's labels are ridiculous to scrape from their bottles!

 

Yeah, I haven't found the secret to removing those labels either. If anyone has any of these in their collection I'd be very surprised.

 

They always leave residue though. I always save them because I love the bottles and the size, but after the labels off I find it still takes some scrubbing.

 

the easiest I've found are Sierra Nevada and Lagunitas, which is nice since I drink a lot of those. just soak in hot water and dishsoap for 15-30 minutes. the SN ones come off easily. I find Lagunitas to be the easiest though, they come off just as easily as SN, but they are thicker so they stay in one piece and dont tear apart.

 

OXO Brite or Oxi Clean will melt the glow and remove any kind of label. hot temperature will shorten the process.

 

Another one for Shorts labels. An Oxyclean soak, squirt of Goo Gone, and a razor blade scraping and you can STILL feel the residue of glue.

 

I disagree with these points but, so what? Topics get recylced all the time because the hobby attracts newbies who want to know. It's a rare topic that is truly original, but I assure you that labels get disucssed somewhat routinely

I haven't needed to remove labels for several years because I have a lot and, plus, I started kegging. When I bottled I reused bottles from commercial beers. Just about every label came off if I immersed the bottle overnight in a bucket full of hot oxyclean. New Glarus labels were among the easiest to remove; they would usually just be floating in the water come the morning. If the label did not come right off, they typically were easily peeled or scraped off after oxy treatment. After the label was gone, some bottles still had some sticky glue residue that could be removed with elbow grease, a scrub brush, and maybe more hot oxyclean. The only labels that stand out in my memory as ornery sons of a gun were from Lake Superior Brewing Company (http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/750). I was never able to get these off. I frankly stopped buying their beer in bottles because I couldn't get the label off. Now that I am no longer collecting bottles, maybe I should pick up a 6-pack of Sir Duluth Oatmeal Stout or Lake Superior Special Ale. It's been a while.

 

I suspect you're talking about the 12 oz southern tier bottles. I was going to come in here to say that the southern tier bombers were the easiest to remove. You can peel off the sticker with no soak or anything.

 

What always has worked for me both with the bottles in The Netherlands and here in Ecuador is just to put the bottles in water so the labels are covered in water and leave them like that over night.
The next morning, most of the labels will be floating around or atleast be so loose you can peel them off with no effort at all.

flying_dutchman.

 

wychwood labels are real easy as well