On swing-tops

It didn’t take long after I started brewing beer before I discovered the joys of swing-top bottles. As I’m sure happened with many new brewers, my first batch (or two?) was bottled exclusively with capped bottles, and the process was slow. I’m fairly certain my first bottling night back in 2007 was about four hours long. Today, that same bottling night is probably about half that in time; and although much of that increased speed can be attributed to a better understanding of the processes involved, some of it is also because of the number of swing-top bottles (mostly Grolsch and Christoffel) that have found their way into my bottle collection one way or the other.

A tip I’ve learned from my new brewing buddy: If you have a local bar or pub that serves beers with swing-top bottles, talk to the manager about buying the swing-top bottles. Some are bound to let them go for the return price. That will increase your swing-top bottle collection quickly and reduce the number of bottle caps you’ll need come bottling day.