Ever seen this? The bottle itself was 100% intact, but the cap had come off during shipping (I found it elsewhere in the box). Fortunately the box had a lot of newspaper in it which soaked up most of the beer. My heart sank a little when I smelled stout on my front porch, but it was an extra that I coincidentally have a couple of, so no major harm done. Would taping the caps help prevent this in the future? Is it an issue of pressure building up in the bottle and blowing the cap off, or the cap getting snagged on something in the box and coming? For the record, the cap itself was not bent that I could tell (ie didn't look like someone had used a bottle opener on it), making me lean towards a pressure thing.
This happened to me on the FIRST box I ever shipped. The brewery later noted that they had a problem with their caps, so it could be pressure, heat, or it could be just a bad cap. Regardless, I wax all of the bottles I ship now, just for security, and havent had an issue since. If you dont want to deal with wax, I'd tape, but wax sure looks pretty!
I'm picturing the UPS guy chugging it, spilling some, then putting the bottle (and cap) back in the box.
I highly doubt that tape would've saved the cap. It doesn't hold the cap down that well, likely all it would have done is limit the leak somewhat (and if you want to do that just put everything in a big trash bag, that's way less annoying for your trading partner). Wax is probably the same deal, my guess is that the cap would still fail but that the wax would seriously inhibit the leak. It would probably also prevent the beer from oxidizing in the meantime, limiting the damage. But cap failures aren't all that common (except with Cantillon...) so I'm not sure it's really worth the effort compared to throwing everything into a trash bag.
I agree 100%. When water/beer expand due to heat or freezing, tape is going to do very little... Though I have taken to using compression electrical tape sometimes on bottles that might be overfilled. Trash bags are the best option and I use one in nearly every trade (except cardboard shippers/styros and sometimes I even do styros).
