stories:
Nagging Question
 |
Why Don’t More Beer Bottles Have Twist-Off Caps?Oxygen is the enemy |
Why don’t more beer bottles have twist-off caps?
Most mass-market beers—like those made by Anheuser-Busch, Coors, and Miller—have twist-off caps you can open with your hands, but craft brews tend to have pry-offs that require a bottle opener. Pry-off capping equipment is slightly less expensive than twist-off equipment, which is a factor for some small breweries. But many craft brewers choose pry-off caps not for the savings but because they believe those caps provide a better seal against oxygen.
“Oxygen is one of beer’s greatest enemies; it causes beer to become stale,” says Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery, which uses pry-offs.
It’s difficult to say, however, how much of a safeguard pry-off caps provide. Steve Harrison, vice president of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, says that his R&D department has studied the oxygen barriers on twist-off and pry-off caps for 12 years. In those tests, they found a slight difference, but not enough to have a significant effect on the beer. (Sierra did, however, recently switch from twist-offs to pry-offs. The reason was that the brewery began using a new bottle-cap lining material that provides a much better oxygen barrier but is too stiff to work with twist-offs.)
Maybe people just think pry-offs are more legit. The Brewers Association, a trade organization for craft brewers, estimates that 80 to 85 percent of its members use pry-off caps on their beer bottles. This reinforces the idea among craft-beer drinkers that only good beers use pry-offs. Admits Oliver, “Twist-offs have a cheaper image.”
Another good reason for the pry-off is the feel of the mouth of the bottle on the lips of the drinker. The little ridges on the mouth of a bottle with a twist off cap feel unpleasant compared to the smooth glass of a bottle with a pry-off cap. When Pete's Brewing Company switched to pry off caps half a dozen years ago, this was the primary reason their marketing department gave for the switch.
I hate twist-off caps, they almost tear the skin of my palms. Are we so lazy we can't use a bottle opener?
With twist-offs you deny yourself the luxury of owning "the bottle-opener", that one bottle-opener that took you much time and many stops at little stores to find, the one that weighs "just so" in your hand, never misfires, looks really great, and is the envy of all your friends when you use it, to the point where you have to be sure you keep an eye out on it.
Mine is an iron one, shaped like a fish, just longer than my palm and about 1" in width over the body of the fish. The tail fin is the actual opener. It's heavy and works every time, easily. And you have to take care of it, because it's iron, and if you leave it in a puddle of beer it will rust. My mother bought it, years before her death, and now I have it.
Oh, and all it does is open bottles, it's not a swiss anything, or a multi-tasking doohickey. I like stuff that is well designed for its purpose, can't ya tell?
Twist offs suck. The very first home improvement I made on my very own tiny little patch of the planet was to install a bar-style bottle opener under the kitchen counter.
Pry offs make it harder to suck up a brew in the supermarket because you need to have brought your bottle opener. Premeditation.
I'm a home-brewer. Pry-offs allow me to use and reuse bottles. Then I go out and sample other stuff, and then refill with my own libation.
because opening a twist off with your teeth isnt as cool...
I dislike twist-off bottles and have previously given this some thought. We'd have nothing but pry-offs if Mothers Against Drunk Drivers (MADD) were brought on board. You sell the idea like this: twist-off caps are conducive to driving while drinking or open alcohol containers in autos and trucks. It results in some "feel-good" legislation banning twist-off bottles.
i heard that most foreign beers are pry-off and american beers are twist offs - but i guess i was wrong? eh, doesnt matter to me, as long as its cold, i dont really care how the cap comes off
bartending 101: always keep a bottle opener in your back pocket and use it regardless of twist or pry offs.
Or just buy the Reef Mick Fannings- most comfortable flip flops ever, with a great built in bottle opener (when you can no longer balance on one foot to open your beer, you know you're done!).