I was at a wedding recently where beer and wine was being served. I grabbed a beer from the fridge, I don’t remember what brand it was, twisted the bottle top only to realize it wasn’t a twist off cap. Sigh. Why do some companies still make beer with bottle caps that require a bottle opener? There must be a good reason.
For the same reason that some wine companies still use corks. Many people refuse to believe that good beer can have a twist off cap just like many people refuse to believe that good wine can be in a bottle with a twist off cap.
Though, when it come to beer, I think it has more to do with domestics/cheap beer usually having twist offs. It’s an image thing more than anything else. If I grabbed a craft beer and and it had a twist off, it might ‘seem’ cheap, but I certainly wouldn’t be concerned about the product. I see people at my store that will not buy wine with a screw off cap. They won’t even look at them. Corks only. On top of that, some of those people will get annoyed if they get home and find out the cork is synthetic.
TLDR-Twist off caps make things look cheap.
That makes sense, but I would never fault a beer company for switching to a twist off cap. In contrast, I like my wine to have a cork in it. To me, going from a cork to a screw cap is far different from going from a non-twist off to twist off cap. YMMV.
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They don’t want to change the machinery.
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Why can’t your girly hands (or teeth) remove that cap?
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Why do you hate the bottle opener factory workers families?
Sheesh! I need a beer…
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Pry offs have a higher quality status. Note that some microbrews are increasingly using twist offs or even cans, subverting this in a “hipster” way.
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Pry offs have the reputation of preserving carbonation better. Googling suggests that the effect may be negligible, though. Sierra Nevada’s words.
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Twist offs are generally more expensive to implement, and craft breweries may not have the capital.
The only one switching semi-recently from twist to pry is Session (by Full Sail). Their model seems to be the less highbrow but still sophisticated, as evidenced by the stubby.
Raise your hand, who has plunged a corkscrew through a screwtop? :smack: I blame never removing the foil, not alcohol.
Like I said, it’s just a guess. I just expect that a 6 pack that’s more than, say 7 dollars or so isn’t going to have twist off caps. It would ‘feel’ cheap if it did. But then, I don’t base how much I like a beer on the type of caps it has. I know of people will base wine on the cork though.
It’s my understanding (from talking to wine reps) that more and more wine companies are moving to screw tops (or at least synthetic corks). Better seals, no chance of a bad cork, no chance of breaking the cork trying to open it, you don’t have to worry about the cork drying out etc. But, like I said, so many people see that screw top and just move right past it. It’s a hard sell.
Hold the beer bottle mostly vertically, tilted just enough that you can rest the lip of the bottle cap against the edge of an old table or counter top. Then whack the top of the bottle. The cap comes right off.
Who needs a bottle opener?
Screwtop bottles can’t be recycled for homebrew bottling, because you can’t crimp a new cap over it as tightly as you can with a traditional bottle.
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Beer bottles with screw off tops are pretty rare here. I suspect that they are mostly American imports. I just assumed that our breweries don’t consider the investment worthwhile. Any serious ‘chugger’ would have an opener on his key ring. Micro breweries rarely bottle their product - we like our beer from a barrel here.
Wine bottles on the other hand, are nearly all screw top. Only the most pretentious bottles have corks in these days, and if there is a cork, it’s likely to be synthetic. Why? - Corks dry out (no one has a cellar full of wine racks anymore). They break and leave bits in the wine. There was a problem with pollution that affected cork trees and possibly contaminated the cork.
I was going to say that part of the reason for this rule could be to decrease instances of drinking in public, in places where there are rules for such a thing.
Yeah you could have a bottle-opener in your pocket, or could buy one, but still I’ll bet there are many instances where someone would buy beer, suddenly feel like getting the party started immediately, but realize they cannot because they can’t open the bottle right now.
This is supported by the fact that I have on a few occasions asked in a store if they could open a bottle that I just bought for me (now you get some idea of my lifestyle…), and they’ve said they are not allowed to do that.
OTOH it’s maybe refuted by the existence of cans.
These must be the sort of annoying people who know absolutely nothing about wine, and they’re missing out on some great wines that are out there in screwtops. I’ve certainly had many terrific (and expensive) wines that were in screwtop bottles, and some of the smaller highly regarded boutique wineries use no other bottle type.
The prejudice comes from the fact that a long time ago (many, many decades) screwtops were cheap affairs that often didn’t seal well and were used only on the most awful swill. This all changed with improved technology and modern screwtops are actually better than corks in terms of no possibility of the cork going bad and reacting with the wine, or breaking off, and they’re easier to open.
And with screwtops you can store the wine standing up if you want – there’s no longer the mystique of having to lay the bottle on its side in a wine rack, but of course you can still do so.
I’m not a wine drinker, cap or cork don’t matter to me. I do like my beer and twist or pry, doesn’t matter to me.
It is absolutely unholy to keep coffee grounds in plastic jugs … the stuff brewed tastes like crude oil.
A friend invited a bunch of us over to his new house. I used the bottle opener on my keychain to open a beer and opened others’ as well (kitchen implements hadn’t been unpacked yet). One guy, being smart, opened his on the edge of a beautiful kitchen countertop, taking off a long splinter of wood.
How things have changed! I remember circa 1980(?) buying a case of beer on my way home in the evening. My beer had pry-offs and the beer guy always asked if I wanted one or two opened for the ride home. Can’t imagine that happening today.
If you don’t have a beer opener on your keychain, you’re no True Beer Drinker.
Besides, if you smoke, your Bic lighter works just as well. Or a spoon handle, or a key, or a door latch… anything solid and rigid enough to be used as a lever, really.
No, not your penis.
I have a bottle opener on my keychain and on my pocket knife. I keep a combination bottle opener and corkscrew in a pouch on the side of oue cooler. I know several methods of opening bottles without a dedicated tool and I have been known to improvise.
Why are you unprepared for daily life?
You gotta be prepared, man. I have one on the keychain, and quite often I’m wearing a pair of these.
Paint can openers have a beer bottle opener on the other end … says something about professional painters.
Funny, 'cause just last week I grabbed a beer, used an opener for the cap, put it to my lips and was surprised by the threads on the bottle. I hadn’t had a drink from a bottle with a twist-off cap in so long that I forgot they were made.