Worst bottle break?

Not exactly a beer bottle ...but I broke a 5 gallon carboy on my granite countertop while cleaning before a homebrew session a few years ago. Shattered into hundreds of pieces large and small -- both of my hands had a dozen cuts and I was barefoot at the time. Total cluster F. I don't use glass carboys a anymore.

 

I once opened my umpteenth beer, took a big drink, and thought "man that's salty beer". Took a look and when it was opened the neck had broken off instead of the cap coming off, and I had cut my lips.

 

Back when DirtWolf first came out, I got two 4 packs and i dropped the first one and it shattered all over the floor. I hated my life, but from the smell, I knew we would be best friends.

 

I was freshly 21 years old (2005) and just getting into the good stuff when I had found out the grocery store (Roth's) across the street from my job at Dairy Queen carried Arrogant Bastard 22oz. pounders. So, one casual weekday I stroll on over on my lunch break about 10:30am to go and get one so I don't have to fight crowds once I get off at 5:30pm, when it happened. Already feeling odd about being the young-looking guy at 10:30 in the morning looking to get his Arrogant Bastard fix on, I started thinking about how uncomfortable it would be if I dropped the pounder while waiting to purchase my apparent beer brunch and just as I thought it, I felt it slip and almost in slow motion, saw my beloved beer descend and shatter into a million pieces of broken glass with beer sprayed all over the checkout area (I was next to be helped at this time). Needless to say, I was super embarrassed but everyone at the store was extremely chill about it, not making me feel like the idiot I knew I was and to this day, it's always TWO hands on the pounders. Cheers!

 

i dropped a 12oz bottle of Stone Enjoy By simply by missing my countertop. i went to put it down on the counter and missed completely, the bottle hit the floor square and shattered in a hundred pieces. this was at 1am, my family was sleeping, and i had just finished smoking a doobie. could not have been a worse time.

bottles make a loud noise when they hit a hard surface after a 4 foot drop!

i cleaned the floor with paper towels, sponges, and a swiffer. i got pretty much all of it except 1 small shard of glass (which my family found and had no clue what it was) and a slight slippery part of the floor.

one of those moments you think, "Am I really high or did that just happen?"
-Yes

 

One time I was on travel and hit a liquor store on the way to the airport, finding a six of my favorite beer. I wrapped dirty clothes around the six and stashed it in my soft-sided checked bag. As you can imagine only a few survived and I had certainly "shared" my beer with fellow travelers, or at least their bags. In retrospect, should have wrapped them individually...

 

I started working at my local liquor store in mid-February. I break bottles here and there occasionally. On my first day I wiped out a display of wine. Broke 2 cases and 4 bottles of Beringer white zinfandel. Another time I was rearranging the cases of beer we have on top of the shelves. I pushed one back and sent a case of Raging Bitch by Flying Dog over the edge on the other side. Thankfully no one was on the other side. The worst incident i saw though, was when one of the stock guys loaded up a U-boat full of corona (about 20-25 cases of 12 pack bottles) and the entire thing fell over. Whenever we break beer, wine, or liquor we get our money back for it as long as we have the cap. As long as it's not a common occurrence, you don't get in trouble.

 

My wife opened the basement fridge and the rail for the shelf on the door fell off. That started a chain reaction where all of the bottles on the shelf fell. Only one broke, but it was a Dragon's Milk Reserve with Raspberries bomber that she had been saving for a while. She was quite upset, as it was a total loss, but the basement smelled nice for a bit before we cleaned it up.

 

I work in a liqour store. Nd thank you so much for letting someone know. Nothing sucks more than walking up on a spill. People could have got hurt and glass is also no good. floor gets sticky etc.... jobs couldb be worse lol. I love my job

Id say worst spill was not about the beer. Its was a not to be mentioned Cerveza. but the worst about it was slipping in it and my hips went one way and my back went the other. what a day that was.

 

Thats a lot of beer. Worst i saw was a stack of cases 8 high come down. But only 4bottles broke out of 8 cases.

 

Lol. Done the same. But luckily the bottle didnt break god knows how.

 

Yeah Consuela, Our cleaning lady, had lots of work that day. Our breakage bin turned into a breakage room that week too.

 

Saw a guy carrying a 12 pk of SA Cold Snap get right at the exit when the handle broke and it bounced off the floor and a huge foam volcano poured out the top. I could see the sadness in his eyes.

 

Worst was watching Tod Mott knock over an entire table of Kate the Great bottles while hundreds (thousands?)of people were lined up outside waiting to buy them. I think only one bottle broke but the fear and panic as the table collapsed was intense.

 

Back in the early days of twist off caps, I was in residence in university. We had all bought a bunch of Moosehead with the new twist off caps, when one of my floor mates twisted his bottle and the neck snapped. The result was two severed thumb tendons. Sound horrible right? Well it was the last bash before exams, and this guy was worried about failing. He got "extra time" while recovering to study and passed all of his courses (good for him). Moosehead paid for all of his medical expenses (good for them!), and we all got enough Moosehead swag and beer to last a lifetime (good for us).

By the way...he's a micro-surgeon now. Fixes stuff like severed tendons etc.

 

Embarrassing
Accidentally knocked a four pack of Dirt Wolf off a shelf at Binny's and all four shattered in spectacular fashion with a good 30'+ spread of spray, they said it happens all the time and wanted to make sure I was OK, not a drop on me but going back to inspect the damage we noticed that a number of cans on the lower shelf had been punctured and were giving a grand fountain display

Really embarrassing
At a pool party in HS I was working on this girl that I was sweet on. She smiled, asked for a beer and I ran for my cooler, on the way back I tripped with a 12oz stubby bottle of Old Style in each hand (out in the country of northern Illinois in '73) they broke and both hands were cut up bad. I woke up with both hands bandaged up and no date. I refuse to drink Old Style to this day

 

Mother in law broke my last bottle of Bourbon County Backyard Rye last year digging around in my beer fridge....she was looking for someplace to put a watermelon... I wasn't home at the time. I get in the house and she nonchalantly says, "I broke one of your beers a while ago..." I didn't think much about it as I was well stocked and all my good stuff is near the back... I dig through the trash and when I saw that label, I froze...I was pissed and my wife could tell... Alas...what are ya gonna do? Lets just say that fridge is off limits to her now... And everyone else in the house but me.... That still bugs me though...

 

I used buy and sell historical flasks which are glass bottles made pre civil war. I opened up a box with a rare jade green scroll flask from Lancaster Glass Works made in 1849 that I paid 900 for and had it pre-sold for far more than that. I held it for about 20 seconds and dropped it. There wasn't enough beer in the world to make up for that one.

 

Samuel Adams 12pks have notoriously bad handles. SA and Harpoon use those stupid triangle-shaped ones that, with their cheap cardboard, easily give way. We've seen them rip so many times at the store that we suggest our customers ignore the handles and just carry 'em from the bottom.

The saddest break I've seen was a case of Sip. Lawson's uses the WORST flats for transporting their beer. The delivery driver was lifting the top case off the stack and it just bowed in half and spilled to the floor. Only a few cans broke, but still pretty tragic. Worst near-break was when I dropped a $150 bottle of wine (Aquilon, for you wine nerds) while dusting it at my store. It Plinko'd down the back of the wine rack, finally bouncing off the tile floor and safely lying down. I saw my paycheck flash before my eyes.