What do you do with the empties?

I also recycle but more efficiently by refilling them with my homebrew! When I get too many it is time to brew more beer!!!!

 

Bar fights and smash them on the sidewalk.

I do wish I could recycle them though. Our recycling trailers take everything but glass, and I get rewarded with a flat tire anytime I try to go to local scrapyard.

 

Choice few set up in the kitchen window sill on display, occasionally rotated out and recycled, when something new strikes my fancy. Right now my rare bottles are a KBS, Wicked Weed Bretticent, and a Weeping Radish IPA. Others are recycled.

 

I recycle all of my beer bottles and cans. The only thing I save are 5
liter mini kegs.

 

Sadly, we don't have a bottle deposit here in WA, so they all just go in the recycling. All those hours of graphic deign effort in the trash, wonder how they feel about that?

 

I keep bombers and cans that I've never had before to display on shelves in my basement. The rest go into the recycling bin.

 

Keep just about one of everything. My closet is getting full though... So I have cut back. I display the best ones in my living room.

 

Redemption, I get my $0.05 back. Every nickel counts for this habit.

 

Trade them in for more beer. Good old .10 bottle return in Michigan. Host a few nights of poker and and youve got $12.00 at least towards something tasty.

 

1) Give them to friends who are home brewers, 2) give the swing tops to neighbors who make herbed vinegar, 3) give the one's with cool labels or cool bottle designs to a neighbor who makes them into candles, 4) put a candle in the bottle and make drip candles with grandchildren, and 5) recycle.

 

I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so all bottles from 4 Hands brewery I keep for home brewing. Their bottles are identical to the empty bottles I bought for my first home brew. I like uniformity in my beer production. Other bottles get tossed.

 

I keep one of every unique beer I've drunk and have them all displayed in my Man Cave- probably somewhere around 500 of them. I recycle all the rest.
I also have about 50 Pliny bottles artistically stacked on top of the beer fridge in there, which I call my 'Pliny Shriney'!

 

Ahh, Michigan...the land of 'forced' bottle returns.

If it wasn't for the deposit, they'd be recycled from my cube. Instead, they are all washed extensively so they can sit inside a box to take to the bottle shop during a break from work.

 

I generally recycle the bottles, but I've got about 250 labels I (read: my wife) intend to collage on a coffee table

 

I recycle most of them, but the really good bombers I keep so that, on weekends, I can take them down to Michigan Ave, smash the bottom halves off against the corner of a building, and wave the jagged remains menacingly at tourists until they run away screaming, or maybe throw their wallets and/or phones to me. You know, give them a bit of that "big city experience" so they have a nice story to tell their friends when they go home. Because I'm a giver.

 

Recycle some, save some, and use some for pellet gun practice.

 

I'm torn on this, right now I'm considering decorating on top of my kitchen cabinets with what I think are cool bottles. The problem is that I don't want my kitchen to look like a 21 year old with their first college apartment that has empty liquor bottles displayed like trophies.

 

Like several others, save for homebewing. If I have too many bottles around, its a reminder I need to get off my butt and brew something.

 

I rarely save any based on the labels, but I help my friend with his home brewing, and I save bottles for him when he needs them.

 

I keep any 'first time' beer bottles for my collection (closing in on 2,000), return any Michigan bottles for the 10-cent deposit, or strip the label and save the bottle for homebrew if it is a 12-ounce bottle and came from out of state. (Bombers from out of state get recycled because I don't use them for homebrew, but I do strip the label.)