Bottle Caps

Factual Questions
1

Almost all beer bottles now have twist off caps. A few, like Heineken and Samual Adams, still have the old style the requires an opener, which is a real pain in the ass if you don’t have one in your ca…uh, I mean house.

Anyway, is there any valid reason for brewers to use the old style caps? I’ve never opened a twist off only to find the beer was flat. In fact, the old style caps tend to chip the bottle lip on occasion, making a guy worry he’s going to swallow a chunk of glass. What’s the dope?

2

pkbites here in Korea (man! I’m saying that in a lot of posts… maybe I should make it my sig!), all of the beer brands have the old fashioned caps! (except, IIRC, there is one brand Exfeel which has twist-offs, but I don’t like that brand, so I’m not 100% sure…)

As a WAG, I think it’s easier to reuse the bottle if it has the old-fashioned top… here, the breweries collect the empties (no deposit, tho…), wash them, and refill them with more beer :slight_smile:

What’s weird, tho, is that they don’t seem to care which bottles they refill! Sometimes you’ll be out drinking and look down at the bottle and suddenly notice that although the label says OB Lager, the brand-name Hite is embossed on the actual glass of the bottle! :confused:

3

okay. But Neither Sam Adams or Heineken are returnable bottles, which deepens the mystery as to why the insist ofn using the old type of caps.

4

Two reasons:

  1. Many small breweries use older and/or lower-tech bottling equipment. This equipment usually applies the standard compression (non twist-off) bottle cap.
  2. Image. Many drinkers of fine ales associate twist-off caps with “rot-gut swill.” Just like a lot of wine snobs (oops, I mean “connoisseurs”), who won’t drink wine from a bottle w/ a twist-off cap.
5

Check out Judging a beer by the cap. I think johnson and Gunslinger are on the right track, but I’ll add a couple of twists. :smiley:

[WAG] Suppose this is or at least used to be true. Now suppose that high quality beers have a lower turnover - that the average boutique brew waits on the shelf longer than the average beer. High volume producers can ensure freshness simply by virtue of popularity, low volume producers have to go with the crown seal.

Now even if this is no longer true (if twist-tops are better seals now) it might be the case that in the minds of consumers non-twist-tops represent high-quality low volume product. This might make it difficult for brewers to switch.