You should have said – I had it on as guest beer last week!

It all comes off like butter after a wee bath in caustic.

In my time on the periphery of homebrewing I struggled with many a bottle of English beer. However, the Norwegians are even worse. And yes, the light hold of German labels is indeed down to the re-use policy.

Wilson – hello stranger! Hope the restaurant’s going well. Your theory could certainly hold for American beers. But our ales aren’t designed to be chilled, so I don’t see why they’d want to use extra strong glue.

I know what you mean with the bottle labels. Personally I find Timothy Taylor Landlord bottles the best, they are a nice shape and the labels come off if you so much as look at them. Also in my bottle collection are the Brakspear Oxford Gold and the Old black Sheep bottles primarily because the labels came off easy. The Brakspear ale has the added benefit of you being able to use the yeast for brewing with. Avoid anything by Wychwood (bottle wise) as for all the labels come off easy they are a beggar to cap with the two handled capper.

I have also heard of people filling bottles with warm water to soften the glue before peeling plastic labels off and then cleaning them up with a solvent (switch cleaner, white spirit etc).

I learned a great trick for conditioning beer in polypins from some of the guys at “beer club”. Keep them cool whilst they’re conditioning as the CO2 is more readily absorbed if the ale is cold, you may still need to vent them depending on the residual sugars but your ale will be in perfect condition in the minimum of time.