Beers made in the usa do things like rinse out the bottle before adding the beer to to remove any glass slivers dirt ect. Do imported beers from Mexico or Jamaica have to do this?
Rinsing out of bottles? I know of no federal requirements to do so (there may be state or local). Most do use air (often CO2 to reduce oxygen) and occasionally water to rinse. Air is generally cheaper.
Commercial operations reusing used bottles is almost always illegal.
Just like federal law, there’s nothing about requiring imported beer bottled to be particularly washed, though again, the process of filling beer bottles generally involves an air or water rinse anyway.
Glass is cheap and easy and there are bigger problems if there are glass shards or metal shards (!) in a bottle. State laws may vary, but I don’t imagine there are many state laws that deal with this, either.
I’m not really sure why you’d single out Jamaica or Mexico. I’d be somewhat more worried about countries known to have a lax record of consumer safety (China comes to mind), but generally you don’t do well in the US if it’s reported your alcohol has glass or metal fragments floating around.
I say jamica and mexico because I drink beer from those places.
Remember that all those imported beers are still owned by huge corporations. The last thing they want is their products to get bad reps for stuff like you’re talking about. Relax. 
I don’t know about that I have hears stories about Korean beers having glass in them even American beers have glass in them sometimes(sam adams)
And there’s rat droppings in your cereal. This stuff is so 'minute and happens so infrequently it’s like worrying about the sun burning out.
Anything imported into the USA is subject to US regulations; in the case of beer that would be FDA regs for starters, others where applicable.
Is there actually a law against it? My impression was that it simply became cheaper to make new bottles than dealing with the hassle of exchanging them, and customers preferred a new bottle. One of the breweries in my town is reusing bottles (pretty much as a “green” gimmick) and they don’t seem to have had to jump through any particular hoops.
And a lot of those “imported” beers from big companies have breweries in the US to supply that market, anyway.
Who said beer made in America doesn’t have glass shards in them? http://lalawblog.net/heineken-orders-recall-of-beer-products-due-to-shards-of-broken-glass-inside-bottles/
That’s exactly right. Moving 1000s of gallons of basically water is an expense and why do it, when you can brew at the point of sale. Of course water does make up a critical aspect of taste, and local water can change the taste consistency of beer, but with the chemical/food engineering so precise, it’s not as important today. Read a few months ago Bud is making Becks in the USA now but “accidentally” forgot to remove the international label or price :smack:
No self respecting beer company is going to release dirty bottles, since the beer is guaranteed to go off in transit. Sanitizing bottles is incredibly cheap part of the cost of producing beer. Even if there is no regulation, it simply makes no business sense to brew beer, than export it, without clean bottles.
Actually, it looks like about 6% of beer is sold in refillable bottles, and some countries go so far as to limit, tax or ban one-way packaging. That said, importing beer in bottles that need to be returned to Jamaica to be refilled would be not so environmentally sound.
I have six cases of refillable Hamm’s, Leinenkugel and Huber bottles that I use for my homebrewing; a local liquor store in St. Paul would sell the cases of empty bottles for $2.50, which is the price they were paid to return them to the brewery.
:dubious:
Cite? Where did you get this? Is that a recent law?
You never heard of return deposit bottles? They still exist although, admittedly, it is now rare. Up until not really that long ago return bottles were the norm for beer, soda, and even milk!
I understand contract brewing- it makes great business sense, considering modern water treatment and ingredient availability, and the relative similarity of most mass-produced beers.
I’m not sure how Anheuser-Busch would have the international labels if they were contract brewing for the US market, unless they were contract brewing for the US market and elsewhere.
I too questi:dubious:n how they could have the old labels if they were bottling in St. Louis. I noticed back in January the labels said “Product of USA”.
The one thing that does make me suspicious, though, is Becks Sapphire has a flavor of corn in it, which would not be allowed by the German Purity Law that the label claims it’s brewed under. I could be wrong, but I’m an experienced drinker with over 570 different brews sampled, and in Becks Sapphire I detect corn!
Yeah, but you gave Schlitz a 4.8 (tied for your 3rd highest ranking of those many hundreds of brews), so I’m not sure we want to put a whole lot of faith in your taste buds…
I always thought German breweries were allowed do whatever they wanted as far as export beers were concerned, since that beer wasn’t to be consumed in Germany, and the Reinheitsgebot was primarily a protectionist law to prevent imported competition from Britain, Belgium and elsewhere that brewing traditions commonly used non-malt adjuncts.
Glass beer bottle recycling is the standard, legally promoted practice in several european countries so it can definitely be done safely. I was in the Czech Republic this past Fall, one of the highest beer consuming countries per capita. One thing you’ll note when you walk down the beer aisle in a supermarket is that all the beers are in large glass bottles, not in cans. About a third of the take-home price of the beer from the supermarket is in the deposit that you have to put down in the bottles, and then there is an automated machine at the front of the store that you can feed your empty bottles into to receive the refund on your deposit on your next trip. So they take beer bottle recycling vary seriously there.
I also had the chance to visit the Pilsener Urquell factory there and see the bottling floor where they were accepting used empty beer bottles, rinsing them out in a high pressure soaker, and then scanning them at a rate of hundreds per minute through a machine that checks for cracks and minute imperfections in the glass that could cause it to fail after it gets refilled with beer.
So recycling beer bottles can theoretically be very safe. Whether the beer bottles used in America are designed for it, I don’t know.
I also learned that all beer imported to america is pasteurized. With american domestic beers, bottles and cans are always pasteurized but kegs of American domestic beer are usually not pasteurized, which is the reason that many people prefer the taste of beer out of the tap. For imported beer, it is all pasteurized whether in a bottle, can, or keg.
But that last part is usually irrelevant because at least in the case of Pilsener Urquell, the beer may all be made in Plzn, Czech Republic, but it is tanked to America in mass containers and not bottled or put into kegs until it has arrived in america.
St. Pauli Girl Non-Alcoholic also claims to be brewed under the German Purity Law of 1516, and it says “malt beverage” right on the label!
Taste is subjective. But what I like isn’t the same as what I detect. And in Becks Sapphire I detect corn. But as I posted before, I could be wrong. Perhaps one of the other ingredients is causing it to taste that way.
Also, keep in mind that was 11years ago and that rating was for the old cheap formula Schlitz, not the 1960’s formula they’re putting out now. $3.99 for a 12 pack does make a good beer taste even better.
It only allowed water, barley and hops. Yeast, wheat malt and cane sugar, were allowed later, but not corn and/or rice. So if AB is using any corn or rice in their Becks formula, it is not true to the GPL and the label would therefore be a lie.