what do to with fancy beer bottles

December 4, 2013 7:01 PM

I've got some heavy, fancy beer bottles, like this, at home. Throwing them out is a waste, and there is no deposit. What can I do with them?
posted by the man of twists and turns to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (11 answers total)

Best answer: If they're swing-tops, give them to a home brewer (after keeping one for olive oil).
posted by pompomtom at 7:17 PM on December 4, 2013 [1 favorite]

Second offering them to home brewers. If you don't know anyone, put them up on Craigslist or Freecycle. Those bottles aren't super expensive but they aren't cheap, and they're way easier to use than smaller bottles or bigger bottles that require capping.

You could perhaps offer them in exchange for getting a few back, full of homebrew.
posted by padraigin at 7:19 PM on December 4, 2013

Keep a couple for bedside or desk water bottles.

Use them as candlesticks.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:27 PM on December 4, 2013

Best answer: Homebrewers want these bottles. And they will give you beer. This is what they were thinking about when they coined the term "win-win."
posted by jeoc at 7:28 PM on December 4, 2013 [8 favorites]

You can make fun drinking glasses from them, like this: http://www.instructables.com/id/Drinking-Glasses-from-Wine-Bottles/
posted by Hopeful and Cynical at 7:34 PM on December 4, 2013

Craigslist -- "will trade for beer" as the price.
posted by oceanjesse at 8:23 PM on December 4, 2013

How many? They can house olive oil and vinegar; they can be used as bud vases; they can live in the fridge and hold chilled water; they can be used at holidays to give flavoured oils as gifts.
posted by DarlingBri at 8:52 PM on December 4, 2013

Throwing them out isn't a waste. They are bottles. Unless the swing-top is ceramic (and not plastic, like most of them are) they are not even worth storing tap water in.
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:18 PM on December 4, 2013

Those bottles are ceramic, yes? Brewers shy away from conditioning beer in ceramic bottles, because they're fairly difficult to clean once beer has been inside them, and that can throw off the flavors of said beer conditioning inside them (rogue doesn't have this problem, because they're using them for the first, and only time). They're not as desirable to home brewers as a normal flip top bottle.

I soak the ceramic bottles in oxygen bleach for a couple days and scrape off the lettering, then they get used for bottling liqueurs and other fairly inert drinks (ones that don't need worry about a bit of leftover yeast). I've also re-painted them, with degrees of success. They're really nice bottles once you strip off the labels.

The drinking glasses idea, while fantastic for glass bottles, isn't applicable to a ceramic little buddy; they tend to break less evenly.
posted by furnace.heart at 9:51 PM on December 4, 2013

Those bottles run $4-6 apiece at the homebrew store for the size in your link-- the brewer will drop a few bucks ($4, maybe) for a handful of rubber gaskets. Negotiate hard for the beer you'll accept in return.
posted by Sunburnt at 9:53 PM on December 4, 2013

Those bottles are ceramic, yes? Brewers shy away from conditioning beer in ceramic bottles, because they're fairly difficult to clean once beer has been inside them, and that can throw off the flavors of said beer conditioning inside them

Homebrewer here, and I have never heard of this. Homebrewers reuse those Rogue bottles all the time.
posted by jeoc at 8:26 PM on December 5, 2013