Hello
Can I bottle my wine in beer bottles and use bottle caps or do I have to use cork bottle stoppers because it is wine? I have the stuff to bottle beer but I do not have wine making materials for bottling. If I have to buy corks for beer bottles what ones should i get?
I am planning to make mostly fruit wines. Right now I have a blackberry wine working that I made from frozen blackberries.
Thanks Manny__________
Hello Manny,
In theory, there is no reason why you can’t use beer bottles and bottle caps to bottle your wine. You would not have to buy corks. In fact, there are not really any actual cork stoppers that would work that well on beer bottles, so bottle caps would be preferred in this instance. It would be no different than using screw cap wine bottles to bottle wine–in theory…
In reality, bottling wine in beer bottles is a lot of extra work. Whether you bottle in a 12 ounce beer bottle or in a 25 ounce wine bottle, its still the same amount of work per bottle, so basically you’re doubling the amount of time and effort to bottle the wine. Trust me I’ve been there.
There’s also the issue of aging. The ability of the wine to improve with aging may be impaired by using beer bottles, not because of the bottle, but because of the bottle caps. Cork stoppers allow a wine bottle to breath slowly or exchange air over time. This is was causes aging to occur… a very slow infusion of air. Bottle caps do not allow for this exchange. Bottle caps don’t let any air through at all. This can limit how much the wine can age.
In the case of most fruit wines such as your blackberry, this is not so important, but in the case of heavier red grape wines, where successful aging is a must, this could very well be detrimental to the wine.
Happy Wine Making
Customer Service
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Ed Kraus is a 3rd generation home brewer/winemaker and has been an owner of E. C. Kraus since 1999. He has been helping individuals make better wine and beer for over 25 years.
Love your articles! I am learning so much. Been making wines from fruits for about 2 years now and am gaining a reputation with a lot of friends. I always make mine in gallon batches which can’t be shared with many friends if bottled in regular bottles. I have gone to beer bottles and now I can give friends a 6 pack of varied flavors and let them decide what they like! They love it and so do I!
what about using flip top bottles to bottle a wine breezer?
Absolutely, you can use flip-top bottles for wine.
Hi Ed,
Thank you for all of these helpful articles. I make simple fruit and country wines in one-gallon batches. I bought a ton of flip-top bottles before reading about how to age wine properly. You mentioned that aging is not as important for these types of wines. Does that go for all fruit wines? How long can I store the wine in the flip-tops?
Nandi, you should be able to store wine in the flip top bottles for a long time. However it will slow down or inhibit the aging process. The aging time mentioned in the article for fruit wines does apply to most fruit wines.
I will say that cider ages well in beer bottles – perhaps it is a different mode of aging, but the taste profile of a bottles, sparkling cider changes drastically over time – rounding out and developing a taste more like brandy than cider (5+ years of aging).
I’m guessing fruit wines (sparkling or not) would do the same. Planning on playing around with blueberry wines in beer bottles… will let you know in 5 years how the aging goes….