Do you keep your empty bottles?

I keep most of my empty bottles. Rare beers or cool labels I'll keep for display purposes, others I clean and refill with homebrew. Recycle and reusing, one brew at a time.

 

Dark Horse puts up a hell of a fight. Had a bottle shatter in the sink in the midst of battle. That bottle didn't get filled with homebrew, but I still say I won.

 

Dont keep the bottles. I save all my labels. I have a label book and then give the bottles to either recycling or my homebrewing buddies.

Cheers!

 

I have a large collection of bottles and cans. I decide to cut back on saving them and decide to choose only a few. Most 750's go to a homebrewer and his friends. I continue to collect Rogue's and Stone's brewing because of the artwork. A special edition release like Bud Light celebrating the Giants Super Bowl win is another collectible.

 

I like to keep my top 15-20 favorite beers for display in my Bar. The rest get recycled

 

I keep one of each beer I drink as well. As the years go by it'll be nice to have something like this to show my future kids and possibly keep them from becoming a budzombie.

 

I keep all my bottles and cans......

 

Seriously, I save them to refill with homebrew.

 

I keep about 25 of my favorites and display them on shelves in the kitchen. Currently have Barleywines and DIPAs on one shelf and Imperial Stouts on the other, used to be split into Belgians and Domestics. Also saving all my Founders 750 mL bottles to eventually do something with.

 

I dislike clutter but I have kept a few bottles.

 

Doesn't really make much sense to me to save bottles, even the rare ones.
I can google a picture of any beer i've ever had if I want to check out the bottle.

See, it works perfect...

 

Ditto I save ANY Christmas/Winter Ale bottle that I have never had before mainly for label art but in part to one day hopefully have the biggest collection on the PLANET !!!
I also save any Whales or truly mesmerizing beers too !!
Almost have the full run of Anchor years !!!
I can get a nickel a piece if times get really tough LOL

 

I usually recycle everything.

 

I keep a bottle from every new beer I try. That seemed reasonable until I got over ~200. Now above my cabinets in the kitchen is full...I had to box up and store some of the more common bottles. I see them as a visual representation of my tasting history and I just can't part with them.

I would have put them in my man cave I had until my daughter came along and took my room (she's totally worth it though)....now I am just trying to hold on until I get a bigger house.

 

I remove the labels of some bottles for homebrew (I brew rarely enough that I don't need very many -- I do save every nip bottle I open, always put some homebrew in those as "tester" bottles to see how it's maturing), and I keep either particularly rare/interesting bottles or De Dolle bottles that I'm not confident I can remove the label from cleanly (I'm a bit of a De Dolle enthusiast). I probably have 20-30 empty bottles with labels still on them right now.

I traded for an empty Deschutes BBXXII bottle after having it on draft -- I've got the rest of the Reserve Series and I'd like to make a bar display at some point. I wouldn't be surprised if there were a light market for other rare bottles, but I also think that most folks who collect empty bottles collect them as memorabilia of beers they've had, and might not want something unless they'd actually consumed it. I did also send an empty Heady Topper bottle to a fellow who had it from the can, enjoyed it, and wanted a bottle/label since he specifically collects labels.

 

I used to, then it began taking up too much space, so I went to the rare ones only with the exception of bottles I keep for brewing.

 

Ya i know a few times at tastings ive tried rare beers and not taken the bottle home since it was someone elses or didnt have space etc. Some of the bottles i have have cool artwork too which is why i kept them but now im not sure what to do with them like ddg, cable car, deviation etc which are cool to look at lol.

 

Count me into the keeping the really rare/memorable ones, and labels of the not so rare and good ones while using the bottles for homebrew camp.

 

I think its safe to say that i save mine...
I'm finally out of room and I'm either going to have to box some up or trow some out.

 

Thats pretty cool with all the breweries lined up like that.