Why doesn’t beer come in plastic bottles? Can’t be the carbonation thing, since soda is fizzier, and it’s available in plastic.
I think they do in Europe; they’ve sold them in the U.S…
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Because beer tastes like crap in plastic bottles. Beer, more so than other beverages, seems to have an unusual property of tasting like whatever you put it in. I HATE drinking beer in cans. It’s glass bottles or a glass pint glass out of the tap for me. Putting beer in plastic would only make it taste worse than in cans, which is bad enough, IMO. For the record, I enjoy soda in cans most, plastic second. Soda doesn’t change that much when in a different container, but it is slightly noticable.
I have seen beer in plastic bottles. It is for all the rednecks that like NASCAR.
Shea Stadium sells Bud in plastic bottles, which look like the glass longnecks, at Mets’ games.
The “unusual property” is that beer contains alcohol. Alcohol is a solvent.
Bar’s and stdiums that have a “no glass” rule generally get AB and Coors products in plastic bottles. the other beers they have are generally served in plastic cups. check around with your local distributer (not your local beer store) to see where they might be available to you.
Hmm… that is a very bad stereotype. After all, it could be the strung out businessman that starts a bar fight. That is why they have them. Most bars love them. They are impossible to break on the bar and attack someone with.
And for the record, it tastes better than a can, almost as good as a glass bottle, IMO. Nothing can compare to tap unless you brew it yourself.
They sell them in 16 oz bottles in packs of 4 at all the gas stations in my area. Most varaties of Miller beer. They are overpriced however.
FWIW one of my homebrewing (beermaking) sources once warned against using those big plastic water bottles (carboys) that are on the top of office water coolers these days for making beer. The usual vessel that is used is the glass equivalent that used to be on water coolers in the old days.
Apparently the plastic ones let some air diffuse through, and beer-good beer, anyway-is highly sensitive to exposure to air (oxidation).
It’s a shame, because it would be much easier to get my hands on an empty plastic one. I could even just use them a few times, then send them off for recycling when they got scratched.
This might be one reason it took a while for beer to be available in plastic…they needed to develop a plastic that wouldn’t let air in.
Stores near the beaches here sell beer in plastic bottles. You can’t bring the glass ones on the beach.
Hmm… that’s odd. My homebrew source ( http://www.mrbeer.com ) has a plastic “keg” to brew the beer in. It also sells plastic bottles to store the beer in. It does say you can use regular 2 or 3 liter bottles to bottle your beer. I guess this is one of those YMMV things. Since I’ve never had the same beer brewed in a different vessel and stored in glass bottles, I can’t comment on wether it affects the taste of my beer. My uncle does use a different beer company and he uses glass bottles and caps his own. He doesn’t brew the same type of beer as me though, so I don’t know what the flavor differences are.
Suck my plastic bottled beer swilling, NASCAR loving dick, you pompous ass dickhead.
Wow, way to banish that stereotype.
Not quite how I would have put it, but an appropriate response. Actually I think a more appropriate stereotype for plastic beer bottles would be for biker brawls in bars. Take that thunk thunk thunk
Plastic beer bottles would be about as effective in a bar fight as a pillow.
Not that I have anything against bikers, mind you. I’ve been to the kind of places that would benefit from these plastic beer bottles.
I was at Yankee Stadium last year, and we bought Miller Genuine Drafts or some such thing. They came in plastic bottles. We figured it wasn’t so much cost, as the danger of having a glass bottle in a crowded, concretey area.
As for why you don’t get beer in plastic bottles? First of all, plastic is thought of as “cheap” by many, especially when its used as a replacement for glass. Hence, plastic booze bottles = cheap shit. Most companies don’t want to represent their product this way, so they stick to glass. Also, it’s easier to re-use glass beer bottles (no need to reform them or anything like that, they can scrub them out and refill them). You can’t put a real bottlecap on a plastic beer bottle, and opening a beer is one of THE rituals of drinking. Plastic twist-caps are associated with soda, and especially when people are paying $4.50 for the beer, they want their moneys worth.
If plastic beer bottles were marketable and saved a signifigant amount of money, they’d be used. I’m sure its been tested, but it probably failed spectacularily.
just thought I’d clarify my remark upon further reflection. I too, agree with the sentiment that not all NASCAR fans are rednecks. However, and IANAM(oderator) obviously, but I believe that kind of response is frowned upon in GQ. oh, and beer in plastic tastes bloody horrible…
Ahh, that’s one more thing: plastic imparts a flavor to the liquid contained therein. Glass has basically no flavor. Glass, then, is the perfect vehicle for delivering an untained flavor.
I agree, they were obviously trolling, and I foolishly gave 'em what they wanted. My apologies. I drink Heinekin away…in bottles.