Bottle Saving for Nostalgia?

I had a few bottles that had cool etched artwork (BA Narwhal, some of Surly's bombers). I was going to get a glass cutter and make glasses out of them. The plan never materialized and I ended up tossing them a few weeks ago.

 

Take a picture instead.

 

Box them up & when you get your man cave use them as you want.

 

My bottle collection just turned into a 6 canvas collage. Looks good, saves space and memories, and will make my upcoming move a lot easier.

 

I keep bottles based on rarity and artwork.

 

I have an empty Heady Topper, Sip of Sunshine and Focal Banger sitting in a place of honor in my man cave.

 

I used to do this for a couple/few years, then decided to quit. It is cool though to keep those very very special bottles.

Cheers!

 

Empties go in the recycling bin. I take a photo of most beers I drink so no need to save the bottle or even label

 

That's awesome. Did you use anything to get the labels off the bottle without ripping?

 

A lot of hot water.. And for really pesky labels, the clear sticker label removers.

 

One of my buddies has an excellent collection of empties. He's also very single.
I have one that is saved for nostalgia purposes, and it's actually because my partner saved it for me. I appreciate that now even more because that day bottling that beer is why I work where I do now.

 

There was a time I wanted to collect certain bottles, but space limitations and the urge to declutter won out. I'm lucky enough my wife actually likes my growlers as decorations. My fellow BAs here in Mass probably know what I'm talking about.

 

I collected bottles right out of college and early in my craft beer drinking - 97-98. I probably had between 100-120 bottles balanced on the window ledge of my studio. When I was moving out, a buddy of mine asked if I wanted to save the bottles, I said 'Hell no". Just didn't want to deal with the labor of unpacking and chucked them into recycling. A lot of Pete's Wicked/Weeping Radish/etc went into recycling that night.

 

I have a cousin who staples empty six packs on his garage wall. It makes a pretty cool collage, but I'm sure his wife also gave him shit for it. I don't personally see the point in doing it, but if it's important to you take a stand, fight for your empties!

 

Same. Not all of them are whales, but some stuff that I can't get again or were very limited, some with cool artwork, a couple just randoms (first beer after we bought the house, etc.). They won't go back in the kitchen when we move into a new house, but I'll probably save and find a new place for a few of the better ones.

 

Cool artwork is harder to toss - the screen printed bottles for Surly Darkness for example look really cool, but at the end of the day, empty beer bottles don't exactly scream class in a single guy's kitchen

 

Definitely. The one I'll probably hang onto forever is 2010 BCBVS, but I have three 3 Floyd's bottles from around the same time and the Gumballhead and Robert the Bruce bottles will be hard for me to ditch. For now, the wife is fine with it but I'm sure when we move into a nicer place in the next couple years she'll want to go a different direction with the decorations.

But if a nice lady comes over and disapproves of your beer bottles, well, beer was in your life first, you know?

 

I save some rare bottles down at school. The tops of my kitchen cabinets are lined with empty beer bottles and hot sauce bottles I enjoyed. Now that I'm in the process of moving, I'll be cutting down quite a bit. I mostly just keep annual or rare releases, like Boulevard's Imperial Stout X Coffee Ale from last year.

While at home, I've saved about 4 bottles/cans. One is to upload a picture here. One can just has a hilarious name. One was saved for the art work. The last one is a special release to commemorate our local baseball team, so I kept that one as well.