Unopened beer collection.

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You must have sacred willpower to not open those 200 bottles.

Even if I wanted to, I could not *not* drink those bottles. I like some of the label art, but I have no problems recycling bottles. The only thing I collect is memories, and I'll take those with me to the grave! (evil laugh)
 
Stauffbier said:
We've all been giving you hell, but if it makes you happy to collect full, unopened bottles you should keep doing it. Don't let us bully you in to opening your collection... :mug:
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Yea a little bit. Still not gonna open em. Keep it going. Maybe I should start getting more LE bottles. Will be soon cause when I get my HOme Brew coming in I wont really have to buy as much beers. I did pick up the Stone Ruinition (spelled wrong im sure) IPA linited edition 22oz. Drank one then saved one. 22 bucks right there. Good IPA BTW.
 
I actually have a Coors bottle that was never opened that I found in a basement of a building I was working on a few years back. I believe it's about 30-40 years old. About half of the beer has evaporated, and it looks quite nasty! I'd say keep up with your collection. It's no more wasteful than drinking it and peeing it out. At least not from a monetary perspective. In 50 years your grandchildren will be happy to own it (or not)..
 
I don't know how the caps on the bottles will fare but I had a few six packs of some beer I collected over the years at Daytona Bike weeks back in 1982/1983/1984 time frame that ate right through the cans. They were some collector cans of Harley beer with the dates on the cans. I think different years were made by different breweries but I'm sure some were Stroh's. They were stored in my basement in a plastic storage tub with the top on somewhere around 72 degrees year round. The stuff actually ate right through the aluminum cans. I also had a couple of cans of Gilley beer from Mickey Gilley's giant bar that burned that was right outside of Houston Texas. All ruined.
 
Frankly, collecting a bottle without drinking it is just wasteful. Waste of money, and a waste of beer. It's like collecting cars without driving them. Meh, you're a beer museum. Only, no one would know the difference if you drank them and then re-filled them with water/food coloring mixes and re-capped them.

No one can stop you, but I couldn't justify the waste, personally.
 
EnjoyGoodBeer said:
Yea a little bit. Still not gonna open em. Keep it going. Maybe I should start getting more LE bottles. Will be soon cause when I get my HOme Brew coming in I wont really have to buy as much beers. I did pick up the Stone Ruinition (spelled wrong im sure) IPA linited edition 22oz. Drank one then saved one. 22 bucks right there. Good IPA BTW.
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that's a shame... 10th anniversary ruination is too good not to drink (fresh).
 
i just drink them and then save the empty bottles for display. that way i get to enjoy the beer and the bottle.

but i understand where you are coming from in terms of collecting
 
i collect bottles, and i keep a cap after carefully removing one so i can put it back on top.. i currently have about 15 cases full of empties that are waiting for a display in our current place
 
Yea about the caps. So far my 25 annaversary ale from Serria Navada (07?). Looks like the cap was scratched on gravle. But im sure a bit of WD-40 will help clean it up. Also I think my 07 Serria Navada Big Foot is cap isn't all that great but still in good shape. Heres a pic. Donr have them up yet. Sorry bad pic was taking from my ipod in a darker room.

image-1764139011.jpg


image-2935670782.jpg


image-1519867017.jpg
 
JordanThomas said:
OK, now I'm mad. All that wasted beer. I'd be ashamed.
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Quite in fact im the oposite. Proud of that. Really the only thing thats kinda annoying is its finally starting to waste my space. Oh and Im broke at the moment and I have no beer in my fridge. Do have 5 gallons of pprter and 5 of oktoberfest fermenting.
 
EnjoyGoodBeer said:
Hello fellas, Im pretty new to the forms but not beer. I was wondering if anyone does the same as me. About 7 years ago I started collecting beer bottles after I hade some good craft beer. Now im up to 200 bottles or so. Including a Rogue 10,000 brew ale. I have to say all these bottles are unopened for my collection. And my rule is that I have to drink the beer before I collect it. Does anyone else do this kind of collecting? And me I dont see the point if somone collects bottles that are drank. Just seeing if anyone has same intresest. If so i would love to hear about it.
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Who knows, he will probably give this collection to his kids or grand kids, and since he has unopened MINT condition bottles maby worth thousands of dollars, never know what brewery will shut down and anybody who has a bottle of unopened brew will be rich to other collectors, I realy find that the way he does it isn't bad at all, drink one, save the other... If you guys have the show " antique road show" you know what mint condition things can be worth...

Anyhow only no 2 cents...
 
jesseroberge said:
Who knows, he will probably give this collection to his kids or grand kids, and since he has unopened MINT condition bottles maby worth thousands of dollars, never know what brewery will shut down and anybody who has a bottle of unopened brew will be rich to other collectors, I realy find that the way he does it isn't bad at all, drink one, save the other... If you guys have the show " antique road show" you know what mint condition things can be worth...

Anyhow only no 2 cents...
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First guy with good reveiw! Thank you. And yes stuff that is unopened and not used always worth more in the long run.
 
Not to be a downer but....

I think it's a waste to not drink the beers (of course), but I also think you have very high expectations as to what these bottles will be worth someday.

The price of the bottles in say 50 years will probably be the same as when you bought them--if they are highly prized. This is because bottles usually go from a retail value to a used wholesale value right after you place them in a private collection. Or down to $.05 value when you open the bottle. Or the price drops down as the beer inside the bottles get nearer to an expiration date.

Only then, after the bottles are worthless for years do the bottles slowly grow in price for the sake of nostalgia--if anyone actually has an interest.

So you are essentially loosing a lot of money right now and you probably won't live to see these bottles ever be worth the price you purchased them for again, if ever. Whoever inherits this will sell wholesale right away (or just give/throw it away) as inheritors usually do with stuff like that. There are better things to collect if you are going to sell to a memorabilia market IMO.
 
iambeer said:
Not to be a downer but....

I think it's a waste to not drink the beers (of course), but I also think you have very high expectations as to what these bottles will be worth someday.

The price of the bottles in say 50 years will probably be the same as when you bought them--if they are highly prized. This is because bottles usually go from a retail value to a used wholesale value right after you place them in a private collection. Or down to $.05 value when you open the bottle. Or the price drops down as the beer inside the bottles get nearer to an expiration date.

Only then, after the bottles are worthless for years do the bottles slowly grow in price for the sake of nostalgia--if anyone actually has an interest.

So you are essentially loosing a lot of money right now and you probably won't live to see these bottles ever be worth the price you purchased them for again, if ever. Whoever inherits this will sell wholesale right away (or just give/throw it away) as inheritors usually do with stuff like that. There are better things to collect if you are going to sell to a memorabilia market IMO.
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Not doing it for money. Just mentioned stuff is worth more unopened that goes with just aboit anything. I do it for me and me only no one else. Well I guess the people that like it puts a smile on my face. Seems everyone on here can't grasp my point. Its not wasteful to me. Only when Im out of brews.... Like now =(
 
EnjoyGoodBeer said:
Not doing it for money. Just mentioned stuff is worth more unopened that goes with just aboit anything. I do it for me and me only no one else. Well I guess the people that like it puts a smile on my face. Seems everyone on here can't grasp my point. Its not wasteful to me. Only when Im out of brews.... Like now =(
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I heard you have about 200 unopened beers. How are you out?

:confused:
 
I've got proabably a couple cases of special release bottles that for the most part i have never had. I started buying them thinking they would be good to open on a special occasion or to share with friends. But often during special occasions i find people already drinking mass quanitities of cheap beer. And most poeple i know aren't too interested in anything they can't gulp down easily.

So the bottles just started piling up. But i'm not too worried, most are barleywines, Imperial stouts, or sour beers that will likely last a little bit.
 
jimebrews said:
I've got proabably a couple cases of special release bottles that for the most part i have never had. I started buying them thinking they would be good to open on a special occasion or to share with friends. But often during special occasions i find people already drinking mass quanitities of cheap beer. And most poeple i know aren't too interested in anything they can't gulp down easily.

So the bottles just started piling up. But i'm not too worried, most are barleywines, Imperial stouts, or sour beers that will likely last a little bit.
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Id drinkem with ya. I believe iv only had one barlywine before serria navada if I can remember right. ( Wich I have one saved)
 
JordanThomas said:
I heard you have about 200 unopened beers. How are you out?

:confused:
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More like about 30 drinkable ones. I would't even want to open or smell the others, might even smell like death.
 
Hi, I have same situation. I have a collection of unopened beers, and I have serious doubts about if i should keep them unopened or if i shoud drink them, refill them with water and close them with their original cap...

I try to weight the pros and cons but still haven't been able to decide:

pros:
- maybe in the long term the collection will value more

cons:

- it feels bad to see good beer going spoiled
- Good beer taste good, unopened beer is tasteless :(
- at some point bacteria in the beer will change colors and maybe get nasty looking
- i've heard about risk of some beers exploding

I've been struggling about deciding what to do, to keep collecting unopened, or to drink those beers that are still drinkable and refill them with water and keep my collection that way... what to do? what to do? what to do?
 
PLEASE don't take this the wrong way!! But you remind me of the character in "40 Year Old Virgin" with his G.I Joe collection in the original packaging..except you collect beer. Do what you want but beer is meant to be drank! Saving unopened beer.....just because??
 
I think keeping opened bottles is way better than keeping unopened ones. Opened bottles remind you of the good times you had when you drank that beer. Unopened ones just remind you of how anal you are.

The only unopened bottles you should keep are the ones you're aging.
 
mrgstiffler said:
I think keeping opened bottles is way better than keeping unopened ones. Opened bottles remind you of the good times you had when you drank that beer. Unopened ones just remind you of how anal you are.
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I'm not sure about what you mean with "being anal", but I don't see it such way. I, as the original poster, follow a rule in my collection: Every beer I collect I must have drank at least a bottle, normally I buy a six pack or more if I like the beer, I just keep one unopened for the collection.

It may look silly, but it is not about degrading a good beer by not drinking it, it is just an idea: "a beer collection is more valuable if it is untouched". Maybe the idea is wrong, maybe it is not worth, I think this conversation is to find that out.

Do you know which are the greatest beer-bottle collections out there?

Cheers
 
mynystry said:
I'm not sure about what you mean with "being anal", but I don't see it such way. I, as the original poster, follow a rule in my collection: Every beer I collect I must have drank at least a bottle, normally I buy a six pack or more if I like the beer, I just keep one unopened for the collection.

It may look silly, but it is not about degrading a good beer by not drinking it, it is just an idea: "a beer collection is more valuable if it is untouched". Maybe the idea is wrong, maybe it is not worth, I think this conversation is to find that out.

Do you know which are the greatest beer-bottle collections out there?

Cheers
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I see that some people actually do this as I do, and yes I have to drink the beer before I collect it.

And to me I dont care if its worth money someday. I'll keep on collecting for me.

Oh and by the way I just had a six year old tommyknocker butthead bock, still tasted great. Not as good as it was fresh, but non the less still very drinkable. I had 3. Cheers!

Oh BTW how long have you been collecting? And how many beers do you have?
 
When I speak of "value" I am not referring specifically to money... I mean value in a more general sense, the value from a collectors point of view... I see it similar to the way post-stamps collectors prefer a unused stamps than those that has been used, even if stamps were "made to be used", collectors don't care about function, it is about aestetics, about keeping things in "MINT CONDITION", and here comes the real question: what's "mint condition" for a beer bottle collection? The problem is that beer degrades relatively fast compared to other collectible items, so it is impossible to keep beer in "mint condition", but bottles can be preserved... maybe I am answering myself, maybe it is impossible to make a beer-collection due to the nature of beer and I should limit myself to collect bottles...

This is why I wanted to read some other opinions about this, and I am glad I found people also interested in such things :)

EnjoyGoodBeer, about your question, about 15 years ago I began collecting beer bottles from other countries as souvenir, I liked the design of some bottles very much and I used them as decoration. Then I began collecting mexican old and rare bottles for the same reason. By that time it began the so-called "micro-brewery revolution" in my country and I started collecting craft beer bottles right from the beginning (many of those first micros were short-lived)... Later I became a craft beer retailer and I got easier access to limited or rare bottles, so the collection is getting quiet impressive... I'm not sure how many bottles I have now, because of lack of time I lost the order and I have been piling beers without control over the last two years... in rough numbers maybe I've around 200-300 unopened bottles and many others that are empty, around 500 maybe, I'm not sure.
 
Impressive. Mine are just more or less craft brews in America. Nothing to the average person on being great. I do have a few bottles iv been able to get at a high end spirit store, but for somone on my income I think I do pretty well.

Your collection sounds very intresting I would love to veiw it. Do you store you bottles on display? Or pack them up? Me im lazy when I bought my house I reopened all my boxes with my brews in there, Now there sitting on the floor collecting dust. Was debating on boxing them back up. But I like to open my room and see them all. If I do show anyone its bot uncommen to see there jaw drop when I tell them there all unopened. Cheers!
 
Thanks!

Well, I'm really a mess... when I began collecting bottles I was living still at my parents, I filled my whole room with bottles and that's the way I left it... as you can imagine each time I speak to my mom she reminds me about how awful I am for leaving a room in their house inhabitable... hehehe, but they indeed have a big house (;

Now I live in my appartment and the same is happening, by now the living room and dining room are becoming an "only beer bottles zone", but luckily my girlfriend has not complain about it yet, ha!

My idea is to build a place where I can display them... I need urgently a storage for my beer shop, and maybe there I can build a small workshop where I can brew some experiments I have on mind... still, beer remains as a hobby, my favorite one :)

btw. Now I limited myself to collect only mexican craft beer bottles, there was a point when I realized the world of beer is just too big for one collector. I also collect beet bottles with "obscure motives" (as devils, vampires, zombies, etc) hehe... pne day I would like to open a small bar with metal music and put those in display >:)

cheers!
 
Yeah it is a pretty big world of beer. That being said I think I'll only start saving "special" bottles. The I"ll have more to drink! :drunk: Yeah if you do id love to give them a gander!
 
Re: value. Someone said that unused stamps have more non-monetary value to the stamp collector. You've got it backwards. An unused stamp has actual monetary value. A used stamp has more meaning and no cash value. As in a date and location information. So for this guy, as a kid when I collected stamps, the usedness gave more value had a lot more value. then again, two year old beer has no monetary value either.

The only beer "worth" collecting is ones fit for aging, which isn't my thing. I would much rather age wine. By aging you provide the beer with value. Saving small beers is like killing it. Killing is wrong.

I used to save as much of the stamp (the ink stamp) as possible. I love those old international stamps. With a kids budget used stamps are cheap.

The best part of a beer is how it tastes and how it makes me feel. I collect tasting notes--they take up less room ;)

But to each their own. It's good to have something that makes you happy even if you don't get massif uppity support. Its a strange thread. Cheers.
 
EnjoyGoodBeer said:
Hello fellas, Im pretty new to the forms but not beer. I was wondering if anyone does the same as me. About 7 years ago I started collecting beer bottles after I hade some good craft beer. Now im up to 200 bottles or so. Including a Rogue 10,000 brew ale. I have to say all these bottles are unopened for my collection. And my rule is that I have to drink the beer before I collect it. Does anyone else do this kind of collecting? And me I dont see the point if somone collects bottles that are drank. Just seeing if anyone has same intresest. If so i would love to hear about it.
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We have about 2k bottles, all unopened. We are currently auditing the collection and will post the results when we are done (I hope by 2014).
 
SilverZero said:
Unopened beers are like unspent money.

Somebody make a signature out of that! ;) (I do like the idea of re-capping with water, though.)
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It's true. People like us are a special kind of stupid:drunk:. Investing in unopened beers like they are trading cards.

Anyone have any to trade? I can produce a list of some I am willing to part with.:mug:
 
I can't imagine letting good beer go to waste like that! Wine or a barley wine I could see holding on to..but everything else gets drank in my house ;) Then again, some nut might pay hundreds of dollars down the road for some unopened can of whatever...so who knows. At least with wine or barleywine you have the chance of a person paying big bucks down the road because its aged to perfection....
 
jnr1005 said:
At least with wine or barleywine you have the chance of a person paying big bucks down the road because its aged to perfection....
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Well, you never know, some crazy things happen when you speak about collectors:

Some weeks ago a guy appeared on my beer shop, he wanted to buy one bottle of each beer I can get my hands on. My surprise came when he told me that he didn't like drinking beer, he's only obsessed about collecting bottles.

By now I've probably sold him around +500 bottles and he keep them in boxes somewhere in his house. I told him about my unopened beer collection, and he got really interested. He is willing to buy them and he is just waiting I put them a price.

Many of those bottles are not interesting for me anymore, since I decided I would limit my collection to mexican craft beer, so it seems I can make a good deal about it, we'll see!!! :ban:
 

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