Bringing Beer Home From Cali

Run a search in the Beer Trading General/Help forum and you'll pull up a number of discussions on this.

I pack beer in my checked baggage nearly every time i fly and have never had anything break. Just use your clothes to wrap and arrange the bottles the same way you would in a box. Most importantly, make sure it's tight. And it's never a bad idea to put your booze into zip-lock bags in case you do have an accident, that way your clothes dont smell like gueuze or whatever.

 

I just came back from Texas with about 8 bottles (6 750ml and 2 22oz). I went down there with just a carry-on bag. What I ended up doing was finding a box while I was down there and buying some bubble wrap. I individually wrapped each bottle twice in bubble wrap and then rolled it up in a pair of pants or shirt. I ended up putting the rest of my clothes in the box and having no carry-on (cos you have to check the box/bag which costs about $25.) Everything made it home in one piece, so that's what worked for me.

 

I'd suggest it. You can pick it up almost anywhere like CVS or Walgreens for $2.

 

I fly a couple times a month and have brought beer home on many occasions, especially when I'm out on the West coast and come across a lot of good beers we don't get in GA. Here's what I do if I plan on bringing beer back with me... Bring a handful of athletic socks and a bath towel or two. If I think I might be picking up a lot of items, I will bring an extra suitcase packed with all the socks and a couple towels. Then I lay the towel in the bottom of my suitcase, place each bottle in its own sock, put a layer of bottles in the suitcase, then fold the towel over and put another layer down, and so on. You just have to be careful to keep the bag under 50 lbs, so you don't get hit with heavy bag charges by the airlines. And as others have mentioned, make sure everything is tight and can't shift. I've brought home bottles, cans, and growlers, and never had a single problem with breakage. I brought this haul back in 2 suitcases from a trip to Northern CA and the Russian River brewery last year.

 

I have come back with beer many times from Cali. It's always been in my checked luggage. I would send her out with some packing tape to put around the caps just in case. Other than that, the only way a bottle is going to break is if it hits against another bottle so just make sure that the bottles are packed very close together so that they don't have a chance to bang against each other.

 

It's not going to help here if I mention that I've had to throw away two suitcases because of breakage and total suitcase annihilation, huh? (I endorse the plan of putting each bottle in a Ziploc bag.) Other times I've been completely fine; however, I find the baggage handlers are less inclined to totally destroy shit if you pack it in a box, bubble wrap and all, and bring the box back with your luggage. The BEST thing to do is allow absolutely NO wiggle room in the suitcase. If anything shifts, it could be bad news.

Also, if your luggage gets randomly searched, depending on the state, you could have to deal with some inconvenience. Buddy of mine was coming back from NoCal with a bunch of RR stuff very recently and his bag got screened - they paged him over. The beer was allowed to go through, no problem there, but they made him pack it all a very certain way (and spring for a ton of $5 bottle-transporter bags. Which are actually kind of cool. But still.)

Kind of a crapshoot what direction you could end up going in. But WORTH. DOING.

 

Eh, hand her a few garbage bags. either pack the bottles or her stuff in those and tape em up. (I had to send a pair of very expensive but beer-soaked satin pumps to the dry cleaner. Trust me, take the extra precaution.)