My label removing soap box...

Bruery labels come off smoothly, but they aren't cheap.

 

Sam Adams are easy.

 

Stone I never use because they are painted on. Two Brothers labels are like vinyl and glued on really well. Southern Tiers bombers are like giant stickers. Basically every other brand I put in a plastic tub with oxyclean for a couple days and they either fall off or close to it. I really enjoy using the short bottles from Sierra Neveda, Lagunitas, and Founders and all 3 have labels that come off pretty easy. I like to bottle an entire batch in the short bottles and another in the long necks and be able to differentiate them just by bottle.

 

Lagunitas! Those sucks and Lil Sumpin labels are floating in my hot water/Oxyclean soak in 10 minutes or less!

 

Just about every bottle from Belgium, labels just fall off if you leave them in water for an hour.

 

Founder's used to come off just from condensation on the bottle, but now, not so much. Sierra Nevada are nice and easy.

 

I've found that if you put a little ammonia in a bucket of water, let them sit a day, labels come off
pretty easily.

 

Depending on what type of bottle capper you have, some bottles work better than others (regardless of the labels). I love lagunitas beer, but their bottles don't work well with my capper. The top of the neck design varies with (I assume) the bottle manufacturer. The LHBS sells the same style cappers as I already have, and I can't be arsed to buy another one online. Same problem with RABC bottles and a few other brands.

Luckily I have enough bottles saved to ensure I can still drink any commercial beer I want without being concerned about whether I can reuse the bottles.

I haven't found a bomber yet that didn't work great tho.

Curious tho, is there another type of capper that would handle both lagunitas and stone bottles?

 

I love troegs, lagunitas, founders, Sierra Nevada, dogfish head, Great Lakes, for easy label removal. Southern tier makes great beer but I quit trying to remove their labels unless I have a plasma cutter handy.

 

I'm saving all my RR 'tion' bottles for a berliner that I plan on bottling in a few months. I'm hoping they don't use the same label/glue combination that Pliny uses. Pliny is probably the worst offender I've met to date.

 

Lagunitas labels fall off with warm water.

I also appreciate breweries that don't emboss their name on the bottle. Hop flowers etc are ok, but I don't want to put my homebrew in a bottle that says New Belgium or Sam Adams on it.

 

Left hand if you can find em. Then again its not the cheapest beer either.

 

You're looking for a bench capper. I've got the Collona (sp?) red bench capper. Works great to cap virtually any bomber, 750, 375, 12-oz, etc. I can cork regular wine as well. The only downside is that it doesn't let you cork champagne bottles.

 

What kind of capper do you have? Is it the standard Red Double Handle one (emily capper I think)? If so, you should be able to put a screwdriver through to the back of the metal guard that wraps around the neck of the bottle and push it out, flip it around, and put it back in. They have two sizes, one for the 36mm caps and the other to use with the 39mm caps (works well for larger neck bottles like some German 16oz bottles). Give it a try.

 

Jacks Abby labels usually peel right off.

 

Sierrra Nevada do that as well.

 

Breweries get complaints from bars if the labels come off too easy. Just saying.

 

I like labels that are more like stickers, not glued paper. Clown Shoes for example, their labels are like stickers, come off clean and so easily.

It you cork and cage, boulevard labels are off in minutes in hot water.

 

New Glarus are super easy.