Who Keeps Their Beer Labels/Bottles When Done? and How?

I've got a feeling you will be filling up any extra spaces you might have on your road trip! (Caps, too!)

 

NOT! Beside the 1,300 botles on display I have about 700 bottles in storage because I don't have room to display them, so I no longer keep bottles. When I buy beer on my road trip, and it's only been two six packs so far plus one 750 ml bottle in 5 days, I'll keep the caps if there are graphics on them, but the bottles and cans will go into the recycling bin.

 

I've saved a few labels. I kept the labels from the different beers I had during a trip to Tanzania and Uganda a few years ago. I peeled them off (which was very easy to do with cold bottles served outdoors in the heat), dried them by pressing them between napkins, and placed them between the pages of a small notebook. I also saved labels from the Old Dominion Pin-Up Series, which I think are retro-cool. For the most part, though, my bottles and cans go to the redemption / recycling center.

 

I keep all the labels that I can - those that fail to de-mount from the bottle I chalk up to a "meh whatever" attitude even though deep inside I'm excruciatingly sad because I don't get to keep the label. With one exception - I really wanted to keep my Ommegang Game of Thrones labels but couldn't get them off without destroying a good portion of it - so I contacted Ommegang directly and sent them a SASE and the sent me back one of every label they got!

Anyhoo, after I de-label, I scan it in to my computer and create a "scrapbook-like" portfolio page with it; complete with some basic stats: Country, Brewer, Style, ABV, my BA Score, and consumption date. And if applicable I include the IBU and Bottled Date. Then I pitch the bottle. In those cases where the "label" is printed on to the glass I try to get a decent photograph of it instead for the digital scrapbook. My scrapbook pages are design for standard 8.5 x 11 sized paper, and I keep them sorted in folders along with a database and application I can use to produce a pdf that will create a printable book that is sorted by Brewer, Style, Country, or ABV.

Then the actual labels are mounted onto sturdy acid-free cardstock. I use a combination of techniques here - clear photo corners and comic book or magazine backing boards - cut to size. I have a rather elaborate system for this. First if the label is a vinyl/plastic with full adhesive still on the back I pre-mount it onto "label paper" - basically I bought a 100 pack of return address labels on the 8-1/2" x 11" sheets from the local Business Depot and peeled off all the stickers, then I use the "lightly-stick" paper backing to put my labels on to then add the backing board.

If the labels are oddly shaped and/or have no adhesive I use postage stamp mounts and stick them directly to the cardstock.

Then the mounted labels are placed inside an appropriately sized clear poly plastic bags with "resealable" flaps just in case I ever want to get at them again (got these from Crystal Clear Bags and I have so many label sizes now that I have close to 26 or 27 different sizes.) They then get labelled with a small 2/3" x 1-3/4" return address label (same as noted above) that has the brewer, beer, and year. Then I put them into my "shoe box" storage that is sorted alphabetically by brewer.

As for caps - non-printed caps are usually just tossed. Printed caps are saved in a 5' length of 1.5" clear plastic tube I got at Home Depot. I'm not sure what to do with them yet, but those wooden cap maps are intriguing, so I might just make a giant wooden beer bottle instead of a map.

My wife thinks I'm nuts, and I say - "no I'm not, my mother had me tested - don't touch my labels!" (true story, though I have been tested and I am not nuts, but I do apparently have OCD and Asperger's... but you may have been able to deduce that already LOL)

 

ALL of our wives think we're nuts, so join the club.

 

Re: main thread topic>>I don't really save bottles (other than to de-label them and refill them with homebrew)...but I also have quite a few 6pack containers saved and stored, from the earliest days of "craft" beer.

re: off main thread topic>>with regard to Waka Jawaka>>---it does indeed rule (as did most of Zappa's prolific output) . Zappa was one of rock music's few true musical geniuses. As well as having great sense of decency, a well honed sense of humor about the music business, himself, and the 'flower power' generation, and a sense of irony... he was one of very few rock artists that was actually musically literate.
People are always so surprised to learn that his perceived 'weirdness' was to a large degree nothing more than a carefully cultivated and well honed facade, and just like rock music's other "madman on stage" Ian Anderson, he never indulged in drugs and very rarely drank any kind of alcohol (and frowned upon use of either of those drugs by his band members. Zappa's actual drug of choice was nicotine).

 

And yet Lagunitas had a series of beers dedicated to his first several albums...

 

I have probably 30+ bottles (with labels still attached) of my favorite beers that I'm saving for a rainy day project. Having trouble deciding on what project to do though. Thinking about buying a cheap coffee table at a yard sale, covering the top of the table in labels, and then putting a layer of glass over it. Or finding a dirt cheap framed picture at a yard sale, taking out the image in the frame, and then covering it with labels and putting it back in the frame. (Perhaps doing a new one with my favorite beers of the year each year?) Open to other suggestions if anyone else has some.

 

The labels under glass sounds cool to me. Just cut off the barcode and legal crap first.

 

......or selective placement of the labels with some overlap that hides those ugly parts will get them out of the way and allow you to use more labels.

 

I've been collecting all the unique bottle caps and then with beers that I've really enjoyed I'll keep the label too. I'm in the process of making a table. The caps make up the middle with a glass covering and on the two parallel side of the glass are where I put the labels. I just decoupage them down and then put some water proof covering on them. It's a pretty big table and been in the process for 2 years but I'm hoping it to get it done soon.

 

Sounds rad, post pics!!

 

I am a little late to the convo but I keep one bottle from every new beer I have. I display them in my garage home brewery. I've since added 50 or so.

Cheers guys

 

I kept some of the rare bottles from my quest to complete the BA Top 250 Beers list (finished it in July 2016), as well as some super rare bottles that weren't on that list (Vanilla Bean Assassin, 3 Sons Brewing #35, Fantome bottles from early 90's). The rule for keeping is that I must have had that beer and from that exact bottle. As I got the harder to obtain bottles from a particular brewery, the easier ones I had from the same brewery got thrown out, but I keep all my favorites from the quest regardless of rarity.

Anyway, I put them up on top of the kitchen cabinets, which are unused space. They make great conversation pieces when I have shares/guests at my house, as well as for reminiscing about good times I had. I don't think keeping labels alone would have the same effects.

 

I would have kept all 250 bottles as a 'monument' to the great effort that it took to complete that quest. Congrats! It was all that I could do to complete my quest to have a bottle or can from all 50 states plus DC, so I now have them in a separate section of my bottle wall.

 

Are those secured some how?

 

Yes, each bottle has a double sided adhesive strip holding it down somewhat secure. In the event of a earthquake or something I suppose they might fall but that would be the least of my worries.

Cheers

 

Sorry, but every time l see bottles on a shelf, l am reminded of the bottle collection l had until October 17th, 1989 - the day of the Loma Prieta Earthquake in California. After half of mine broke, l decided to stick to caps, but l still save cool and/or old bottles - with a nice, thick ring of Earthquake Wax under them!

 

Hahaha...not if I want to survive my wife