Am I The Only Beer Geek That Saves Empty Bottles?

Short answer to thread title. No.

 

Yeah, I soak them in oxyclean, peel the labels and fill with homebrew. Lots of people around here do this. There have even a thread (http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/best-worst-beer-label-removals.50217/) in the homebrewing forum about this practice, and which breweries are the best and worst to do this with.

 

Its not just you.... I've got them lined up from best to worst. There is alot of glass on those shelves.

 

I think he is talking about trophys, not for reuse.

 

I keep all the ones from the beers I love. My bestfriend keeps them and that's his way of rating them.

 

No you are not. I was saving one of every beer I tried, but after a few months I began to run out of space. So what I did is, I soaked all those bottles until the labels peeled off, and I put them in an album. Next step is to make a beer-label-table. I inherited a cool wooden folding table from my grandparents that my grandfather covered with wine labels, and the clear coated over. That gave me the inspiration to make a similar table with beer labels. I also save various bottlecaps, which I make into coasters.

I also save some bottles with printed on labels, and some cans to display when I build my bar.

 

I sell them back to the homeless people for 4 cents a bottle.

Lol I'm just kidding, that would be mean. 3 cents is my going rate.

 

You're not alone, my friend. I always keep some of the most memorable brew bottles around, based on how I liked the contents, label art, etc. I add to my collection as I go of course, and every once in awhile, I sort through the bottles and recycle a portion. Keeps the display from getting too out of control.

 

My fiancee thinks it weird, but I save all my bottles, date them with a silver paint marker, a gold one for my favorites. They reside in boxes for now. I will make a trophy shelf one day.

 

Hehe... De-location... My wife tells me I'm ******ed whenever I watch that show. I think it's funny

 

I was saving them but quickly ran out of room, Now I just take a picture or two. Have several images on flickr as well as Facebook.

 

i could not agree more. this is exactly what i do.

 

i do this too

 

I just save the labels. Only bottles I ever consider saving are awesome looking silkscreens.

 

I save certain specialties and rarities or just really good brews. I also save one of everything that isn't year round from Stone and DFH. Stone because their bottles are what got me started saving and DFH because they're my favorite and they make a lot of cool labels. I have 4 wine/bomber boxes full of bottles plus another box or 2 worth just sitting around my room. Those are the extras. Then I have my shelf. The only picture I have of it is a waayyy outdated one from almost 2 years ago, but it is what it looked like then



Its much more cluttered now lol.

 

I save all the bottles. I'm currently at ~650.
I also have an app on my phone that lets me add a photo, name, type, description and rating.

 

I've met a few people who do this and I was close to saving mine at one time but with 600+ reviews now, that would have required a new room or a few racks, at the least.

Instead, I just cut out the sides of the sleeves for any 6-packs where I've had at least one one of the bottles inside of them. It's just a big box for me now and someday, I'll have a wall (or maybe part of a bar) with all the sleeves of the beers I've been fortunate enough to enjoy over the years.

 

I have no room for thousands and thousands of empties. It would be like an awesome episode of hoarders if I kept every bottle I've popped.