Beer Forum

i have brewed a belgian ipa with abbey ale yeast and bret. i usually keg my beer but want to bottle this one. i have a whole bunch of swing top german bottles but i am unsure if they can handle the additional pressures of highly carbonated beer. the glass looks pretty thick but i don't know if i need to get some belgian bottles to be safe. i am not against buying new bottles if i need to. does anyone have any experience with german bottles and bret? i would like to bottle condition this beer because it is awesome and i think the bret character will mature nicely. let me know what you think.

Whitey wrote:It depends

Most of the swing tops I've worked with were thicker glass, but now that craft beer & homebrewing are getting more popular, there's American companies making/importing cheaper ones that aren't any stronger than your standard 12oz brown glass. If they look robust, I'd say go for it. In most cases the regular bottles are usually fine, but that extra reassurance is nice.

i bought cases of beer in germany and these are the bottles. this beer has already been sitting for 6 months and i plan on letting it go for several years. just want to make sure it doesn't get wasted

Just for the fact that it's been batch aging for that long would make me pretty comfortable about it. Any activity that might be left will be minimal at best. I vote go for it.

Payment for this advice, in the amount of 2 bottles can be sent to...

What Ozwald said. I will be forward my address as well.

Start drinking a lot of Jolly Pumpkin 750s and saving the bottles.

another quick question. i have not bottled a bret beer before. i know bret will keep fermenting slowly and i should use less priming sugar but i am really unsure as to how much i should use. my og was 1072 and i am at 1007 now. also should i add more yeast before bottling? I feel like i should and i am not sure if i should go with brett or abbey?
i am tempted to force carbonate and then bottle just so i can control it a little more, but i really like the idea of feeding the bret a little more sugar in the bottle for more character. the whole reason for bottling was to keep bret out of my kegs and out of my bottling lines. What the fuck i have to many decisions. any ideas?

maxwell wrote:Start drinking a lot of Jolly Pumpkin 750s and saving the bottles.

i live in west virginia and only get to read about most good beers. i travel quite a bit and try to buy most of my beer while on trips. I have never had jolly pumpkin but have heard good things. The beer scene has gotten better in the past two or three years but it is still pretty dismal. hopefully i will be moving in the next year or so