Bottle Bargain?

I already have 48 empty home brew bottles coming soon. However, I will need some more bottles for my second home brew, while the first is still maturing in the bottles. At 80p per bottle for the empty home brew bottles, I decided that I might be able to get bottled beer from the supermarket for close to 80p per bottle. They needed to be large brown bottles (green and clear bottles let too much light through, which can damage the beer). I failed to find any at Sainsburys, but Tesco came up trumps, with a 6 pack of 500ml imported German Eichbaum costing £4.99. This comes in at about 83p per bottle. I was aware that the quality of the bottles would undoubtedly be lower, but I decided to chance it, given that the bottles were already holding gassy lager, so I bought 48.

I have decided that the IPA is likely to be one of the less gassy beers I produce, so I will use the new bottles for this, and save the home brew bottles for the next brew. This means I have to get through 48 large bottles of beer in a little over 2 weeks now. Providing the beer when a few friends came round for my birthday has got 20 emptied, just 28 to go.

Only time will tell whether I am currently enjoying 3p high quality lager (and it is really nice lager), or whether I am a couple of weeks away from having to clear up beer and lots of broken glass from under my stairs. I think its worth finding out just once whether cheaper bottles can be used in the future...