Best/Worst Beer Label Removals!!!

New Belgium labels have always been very easy for me to remove but the worst are by far Lake Louie, a brewery here in WI. They make some great beer but their labels are IMPOSSIBLE to get off clean.

 

Bell's are easy. Short's not so much.

 

Anyone have any tricks for getting labels off? I am using them for covering a coffee table.

 

I've always had the best success soaking them overnight in a tub of soapy water, they come right off super easy in one piece and generally still have enough glue then to stick right back on to something like a coffee table.

 

Oxyclean, baby! Oxyclean free ( no perfume) does EVERYTHING in a home brewery.

 

In terms of widely available stuff, New Belgium & Sam Adams have always worked well for me. But FFF is by far the best I've dealt with. After a short soak in water, maybe a couple of hours, the labels just slide off.

The worst has been Great Lakes or Two Brothers. I think their labels are plastic vs. paper.

 

I have been using the same method for years.... 2 methods actually.

Sticker type... they are typically the shiny ones.
-Fill the bottle with boiling water from a tea kettle... let the bottle get warm/hot and peel them off and stick it to card-stock.... Talk the ever generous wife into cutting them out when she is bored at work during the summer months.

Pretty much all others. (This method comes from one of Papazian's books)
-Soak in hot/near boiling water with about a 1/4 cup of standard household ammonia/gallon of H2O and they typically come off with little coaxing. Rinse the label and dry it flat on kitchen towels.
--Of course there are exceptions, Dogfish use some type of proprietary paper that gets really flimsy really fast... You have to stay on top of these and be very gentle. For DFH, I am at about 80% success rate.
---Also frequently with paper labels that have sorta foil/metallic printing, the foil/metal will flake off with the gentlest touch.. again be careful.

I started collecting labels when I really got into homebrewing.... I now have literally thousands of different labels. I really need to stop. It is a bit of an OCD thing for me. "Why would I stop now?!?! Do you KNOW how much TIME I have spent doing this over the last 10 years?!?!"

Hope this helps... Toby.

 

I hear you on Berkshire, just think their bombers are over-priced for what they are.

My go-to has been Sierra Nevada! A soak in hot, soapy water means you can peel the labels right off. Then a scrubber sponge takes the glue. Easy. Plus you (used to) get the nice 12-pack box with the cardboard spacers. Recently though they've switched to a Corona/Domestic tear-off front/top box with no spacers. Meh.

 

Don't even try with Cigar City labels.

 

From my personal experience:

Best:
Most German Beers (Hot water soak...the labels fall off)

Easy: (Hot water soak, light scrub)
New Glarus and Bells

Honorable Mention: (Hot water soak, medium scrub)
Sierra Nevada

Generally Not Worth the Effort: (Hot water soak, forceful scrub)
Founders

Absolute Worst (Damned near impossible, do not attempt--just recycle):
Haandbryggeriet

 

FFF bottles are pretty easy seeing as that they are half off when u buy the beer

 

As darklordlager said, most German beers' labels fall right off after hot water. I have about 30-40 long necked old oktoberfest bottles for this reason. Really like the shape of them too.

 

I remove the labels on most bottles not because I'm a homebrewer, but because I want to keep labels of most beers I've tried as "souvenirs." Bottles take up way too much room. As others have said, most German, Belgian and English labels come off really easily (very surprised by OP's complaint about Sam Smith, I've never had trouble with those labels). Founders, Great Divide, and Firestone Walker labels, among a few others, are some of the most stubborn. It must be different types of glue or something. Lost Abbey labels tend to just disintegrate if exposed to hot water.

I really like the labels The Bruery, Logsdon, Upright, Fremont etc. have been using. They're not paper, more like a plastic sticker. All you have to do is peel them away and stick them on a sheet of paper (or throw them out if you're removing them only to reuse the bottles). No need to use hot water, soap, or anything else to get those off. They never tear or stretch either.

And FWIW, since I do intend to start homebrewing again someday and strongly favor 500mL bottles (e.g., Pliny, or German hefeweizens etc.) a foolproof way to remove Pliny labels is to stick the bottles in the oven at about 225 for maybe 10 minutes. Melts the glue and the label comes off pretty clean.

 

Bruery labels are super easy to peel off. I have a ton of Bruery labels displayed on my bar.

Every other label: too stupidly hard to save.

 

After 12 years in restaurants, I have found the best thing is to fill a container with boiling water and place the bottle in it, making sure the label is facing down. That is how I do it to remove labels for guests. It takes about 10 minutes. They also make label removers, which is basically a last piece of clear tape larger than the label. That way you can remove the label and place it in a book or however you plan to use it. Although it sounds like you are not trying to keep the label. At home, I would boil water and then pour that water in a wide deep pan so you can do multiple bottles at the same time. I would also cover it to make the steam-method as functional as possible.

 

I LOVE this post! I use Oxyclean for two days, and I can tell you, there are 3-4 different glue types out there. Some are great, some suck. Ballast Point used to be horrible, but now better. Russian River used to be good, but not good now. I wish I knew the TYPE of glue used on each bottle, then I would throw away the ones I knew wouldn't work out.

 

stone labels are the hardest for me for obvious reasons

bells seem pretty easy

 

I don't get rid of labels anymore because I am lazy; however, in recent memory:

Easy:
Oxiclean will make Lagunitas, Founders, Great Lakes, Great Divide labels float right off soaking in a plastic tub. (any not overly laminated label will let the oxiclean dissolve the adhesive easily)

In-fucking-possible:
Dark Horse

its like cement on a label

It also appears that Shorts labels would be a bit of a pain as well, but I have never tried.