Obtaining cheap bottles from local pubs? Possible?

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Polymath

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Was drinking out in town last weekend when I came over the following idea. Got a drink at the bar and watched the staff throwing used bottles into a large container. My idea came from where do those used bottles go?

I am considering they do one of two things with them :

1) Bin them all
2) Recycle them
3) Send them back to the suppliers perhaps?

If my local pubs are just binning them, surely I might be able to approach the owner of the pub and purchase/obtain them for my own use. At the minute I'm looking at a pack of 6 beer bottles from Wilko's for about £3.50. So thats 50p a bottle. Or £20 for a full set of bottles for one brew. If I can reuse them from my local pub which was just going to bin them anyway, then I can drop my costs ALOT.

Does anyone have any experience or opinions on this. Clearly each bottle would be given a very good clean (1 hour soaked in strong steriliser) before use ....
 
Alot of people on here collect bottles from pubs :thumb:
I think the Magners and Bulmer cider bottles are the best to ask for :thumb:

You just have to go and ask them I'm sure most are happy to set some aside for you. :cool:
 
That's where I get all my bottles from, they've only got to pay to get rid of them (or take them up the bottle bank themselves). Don't bother with the RTD bottles, go for the Bulmers and the Magners bottles.

Newkie Brown bottles are returnables (depending on the pubco/brewery) so you don't want those - they're clear anyway so avoid like the plague.
 
leondz said:
What's wrong with clear bottles? The Old Speckled Hen ones are a great shape!

Nothing wrong with OSH bottles all you have to do is store them in a cardboard box or a dark place once youve filled them with your beer.
 
They'll normally give them away quite happily, as someone else has said they have to pay to get them picked up - hardly any go back to the breweries these days.

I use clear bottles as well as brown ones but do have somewhere to keep them in the dark so never had an issue with any of them skunking ( which is why people stay away from the clear ones).
 
Ahh excellent, the cellar and alcohol cupboard (may as well be a walk-in, the amount of stuff in there..) are usually pretty dark. It's odd, I thought that negative reactions from light only occurred with some kinds of wine - obviously not!
 
leondz said:
Ahh excellent, the cellar and alcohol cupboard (may as well be a walk-in, the amount of stuff in there..) are usually pretty dark. It's odd, I thought that negative reactions from light only occurred with some kinds of wine - obviously not!

The isohumulone (an isomerised alpha acid from the hops) reacts with UV light to create 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol. Wine doesn't contain isohumulone so that doesn't happen.

I'm sure there's another reason why wines come in different colour bottles.
 
i hope newky brown bottles are ok i spent weeks buying it by the crate and drinking it so i could have a stock of crates and bottles :grin:
i do keep mine in the dark anyway so fingers crossed, i prefere clear i can see if they are clean of sediment
 
jamesb said:
The isohumulone (an isomerised alpha acid from the hops) reacts with UV light to create 3-methyl-2-butene-1-thiol
You've been practising :lol:
 
Agreed, most pubs are only too happy to let you have a rummage through their bottle recycling bin, if you ask nicely. It helps if you're buying a pint at the time, but I'm always quite open about it, “I might buy yours at weekends but for in the week I brew my own”.

Alternatively, if you have a doorstep recycling collection, ask your neighbours if they mind you rummaging through their tubs on collection day, that's how I get all of my wine bottles but the buggers only seem to drink canned l*g*rs, so it's rare that I find anything useful for my beer.
 
Success. Cheers folks. Getting my first supply from my local pub this Tuesday. Never need to buy bottles from Wilko's again. :-)

And Yes. I did have a quick half in there before asking. I'm sure it helped. Likely to have a pint in there each time I head in to collect etc.
 
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