I’m going to make my first home brew beers, but need some bottles.
I’m thinking pop top style bottles would be the simplest, so I don’t need to bother capping them.
Does anyone know of any 500ml+ beers with pop tops, readily available in the U.K. or available online?

All I can think of is Grolsch, but these are only 450ml and none of my local supermarkets have it anyway.

Crown cappers work pretty well imho – and of course you need empty bottles to start with…

old pop bottles?

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/products/tableware/jugs-carafes/korken-bottle-with-stopper-clear-glass-art-20322472/

They also do bottles in 33cl and 1l

HTH, cheaper than the 6 for £8 at Wilko.

Alternatively Aldi were doing christmas beer with swing tops but that’s probably long gone.

Screw caps?

The easiest are plastic drinks bottles that were used for fizzy drinks. They work well.

A crown capper is pretty easy as well.

You can buy the swing top bottles but they are expensive. £18 for 8 bottles

Don’t use too big a bottle, when you pour your homebrew, you need to be careful that you avoid getting sediment in your glass. If you have to pause poring once you start then it stir up all the sediment into the beer.

You could always get a pressure barrel?

Fischer lager is supplied in a swing top.

Bottles have to be scrupulously clean every time and grolsch tops are a bugger to clean and dry, I’d get a capper

Make sure the beer has settled before you bottle it and make sure you use water traps on your brewing vessels to allow the gas to escape – the numerous dents in the polystyrene tiles on my bedroom ceiling as a teenager bear witness to the need for that.

You could always get a pressure barrel?

Nooooooooooooooooo

Contamination! One bottle out of 40 = one bottle lost.
One bit of contamination in a pressure barrel = all lost

Coopers PET bottles FTW – any big Tesco should stock them, iirc £15 for 24 bottles

Have a party at your house. Tell everyone to bring Grolsch

If you’re near Amersham you can have my Copper’s PET bottles for free – I’ve gone over to glass bottles.

Thanks for the offer Murray, but nowhere near.
I don’t much like the idea of using/reusing plastic bottles- isn’t the porosity of the plastic likely to affect carbonation, and if I’m heating them there’s the issue of chemicals leaching out and affecting flavour?

Also thinking that if I’m buying empty glass bottles, I might aswell just buy some with beer in to start with.

Contamination! One bottle out of 40 = one bottle lost.
One bit of contamination in a pressure barrel = all lost

The home brew myth that beer is easily contaminated!

It’s not!

People brewed for thousands of years without even knowing what a microbe was.

All of my beer goes into corny kegs, never had one infection.

Never use an air lock.

The risk of infection is overstated by the people selling the cleaners and sanitisers.

All you need is some cheap oxi and some no rinse sanitiser.

I don’t much like the idea of using/reusing plastic bottles- isn’t the porosity of the plastic likely to affect carbonation, and if I’m heating them there’s the issue of chemicals leaching out and affecting flavour?

No and no.

Plastic is fine for a few months. It will allow oxygen in eventually but you’ll have drunk it by then. The other downside is infection, plastic scratches easily and scratches harbour bacteria, so you can’t use a bottle brush on them.

For bottles you can get them wholesale quite cheap if you’re buying 50. Or ask on freecycle or homebrew forums, I couldn’t give them away!

Try here …. about 50p each depending on how many you need.

Just get a capper, hammer ones are only about 2 quid,

I used tesco fizzy water bottles last year. About 19p a bottle and came sterilised (off sorts). Just pour out the water & pour in the tasty beverage.

Job jobbed.