Labeled Bottles

I'd probably move this to the homebrew forum. i have heard of people getting custom printed labels and there are "easy" ways to apply the labels to the bottles but have never done it myself.

 

Welcome to the BA site, Eric, and to the Homebrewing forum. Hang around here as much as you'd like; it's a great place for newbies and experienced homebrewers.

I usually label my beers, and I mostly do it on my inkjet printer at home. However, I did it once for a wedding beer that I had the labels printed at Staples for better quality.

The design of the label is something that you didn't mention, so does that mean you've already done that? If not, I've always used MS Paint to design mine, thus they are kind of primitive, but you can use other graphic design apps. But I steal graphics from wherever I want so the design becomes a bit more professional.

Most of the labels are printed on 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper that you can find at homebrew stores (I forget the brand name), and they are applied by a wet-and-stick method (actually dampen, not wet, because water will make the ink run on your newly printed label). You create a 8.5 x 11 template with as many iterations of the labels as you want on a sheet, print it and cut them apart. You have to be careful that you don't print on the sticky side of the paper or the ink will moisten the glue and gum up your printer jets. These labels will float off in water so it's easy to reuse your bottles.

The label that I took to Staples for printing was also my design, and I loaded one copy onto a thumb drive as a .jpg file. I also took the printer paper along because my Staples didn't carry a peel-and-stick label that was an 8.5 x 11 sheet that had 4 labels per page. They printed them while I waited. It was probably 100 printed labels (25 sheets) since it was a small wedding and I brewed a batch of beer that produced two cases. I don't know whether water will dissolve the stick-um on these labels for removal and reuse of the bottles.

I hope this helps. PM me if you have further questions.

 

I’ve used Bottleyourbrand.com & UPrinting.com

I prefer UPrinting based on price. Both services great, fast, good products. Allows you to make custom labels with your own images/logo/etc. You design your label online, can add text, etc, preview and order.

Then hand apply to bottles. Labels are waterproof, peel off easy though if you want to reuse bottle and not label.

 

I just keg my beer, no labels needed.

 

I am a fan of Avery mailing labels. Nothing too fancy but I just put some notes about the beer on them and it helps keep track. Easily to apply, cheap, and easy to remove.