HOW TO PEEL THE LABEL OFF A BEER BOTTLE
TEXT AL NEEDHAM | ILLUSTRATION LADISLAV KOSA
The desire to remove the label from a beer bottle is a supremely irresistible primal urge, harking back to the days when the first Homo sapiens skinned a sabre-tooth tiger to make a nice Wilma Flinstone-style dress. It also allows you to commune with your inner child, recalling the time you covered your hands with creamy white school glue and spent an entire playtime slowly peeling it off
Not only is beer bottle label-peeling a sign of high status (after all, it demonstrates that you’re drinking somewhere that actually allows you to walk about with a potential offensive weapon), it’s also one of the more discreet ways of killing time in the pub without drawing attention to yourself. Edging your fingernail around the square or oval of gummed paper and slowly undressing the container is far cheaper than shambling over to the fruit machine and shovelling in coins that you already know you’re going to lose. It’s also healthier than nipping outside for a smoke and creates much less mess than shredding a beer mat. As a matter of fact, when you tease the branding from a bottle, you’re actually doing your bit for the planet. After all, if you didn’t do it then someone else would be stuck with the task down at the recycling plant, which means you’re helping to speed the process up and helping the environment at the same time. Or something.
THE HISTORY OF LABEL-PEELING
The first recorded instance of beer bottle label-removal occurred just after the invention of beer in Mesopotamia, 7,000 years ago. A bored labourer, whose girlfriend was busy talking to some other bloke he didn’t know, got the hump about it and set about a stone jar with a hammer and chisel. It didn’t catch on. The Egyptians really popularised the brewing and consumption of beer. They even had the nous to perfect glass-blowing but, unfortunately, papyrus was too brittle to wrap around a bottle.
It wasn’t until the 1840s when the brewing industry finally got the hang of pasting paper labels onto bottles – before then, a tax on glass meant that breweries were very careful not to spoil their vessels with layers of glue and whatnot, and weren’t as obsessive about branding as we are today. Unfortunately, Victorian values were firmly in place. At a time when piano legs were kept covered to avoid corrupting public morals, the idea of defiling a bottle of Doctor Carlsberg’s Olde Fizziment in public was tantamount to walking down
Whitehall hand-in-hand with Oscar Wilde. At Victorian dinner parties, the gentlemen would adjourn to the drawing room – telling their wives that they were embarking upon a ‘discussion about the Whyfores of The Age’ – and then take it in turns to peel back the corner of a label approximately two centimetres, look at it for a bit, and then stick it back.
By the post-war era, label-peeling was thoroughly in vogue. A brief scare erupted in the late 60s, when a rumour swept through British universities that after licking the back of a peeled-off Double Diamond label you would be transported to an alternate plane where a voice would give you ‘The Word’, but that once you received it you would never be able to live in the third dimension ever again. But that was a load of old rubbish.
Nowadays, modern technology has progressed at such a pace that the art of label-peeling has been endangered by the introduction of plastic bottles with printed-on branding. By the year 2030, the only way you’ll be able to get a label off will be to use those mini-blowtorches people always seem to buy on holiday and are then forced to hand over at customs. Until then, the breweriana world will continue to argue with itself over the best way to get the label off. Some say a couple of days soaking in a tub of iced water does the trick, while others prefer filling the bottles with boiling water and placing them in a tub of dishwasher solution.
There’s even an international body called the Labologists’ Society, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. According to them, the most valuable labels are either the ludicrously ornate ones from Victorian times, or one-off special editions of more famous beers from the 1930s. Labels from more recent and ridiculously expensive beers are worth collecting, too, if only to prove that you actually shelled out for one. Don’t bother spending £130 on a bottle of Samuel Adams Utopias for the label though – it’s embossed on a copper-like vessel. However, spending £211 on a bottle of Carlsberg Vintage No.1 (limited edition of 600, only available from the Carlsberg visitor centre in Denmark) gets you a hend-stencilled lithograph depicting scenes from the life of the norse goddess Sif (a.k.a Mrs Thor) with a projected resale value of £50. Lovely.
LABEL-REMOVING: THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
1. Never forget that the whole point of label-removing is to take as much time as possible getting it off. As Marge Simpson’s French bowling instructor said when he was about to make his move on her: “Better than ze deed, better than ze memory… ze moment of anticipation!” If you’re male, label-peeling is your gender’s equivalent of the bit in the Flake adverts when the dolly-bird twizzles open the end of the wrapper. It’s an act of self-seduction so take your time.
2. However, if you’re drinking the kind of cheap, nasty, gassy, chemical-tasting beer that you wouldn’t normally be seen dead with, ignore Rule 1 and just get that damn label off as quickly as possible.
3. When attempting to undress one of the poncier beers on the market get rid of everything else before you start on the label. Foil around the neck of a bottle is just as important as the label. Smaller labels on the collar are a vital testbed for any glue-related issues you may need to confront.
4. Always remember that the whole point of label-removal is to get everything off in one go. A torn, half-removed label is a life half-lived, if you ask me. If you’re not going to take this thing seriously why even bother starting in the first place. If it starts tearing don’t panic – focus on the rest of the label and come back to that bit at the very end.
5. As for the best technique; well, we could spend the whole of the magazine arguing about that. My personal approach is to take advantage of the condensation which forms around the bottle while the beer’s still cold. Let this soak into the label and then pick around the sides in a clockwise direction. Then – rather in the manner that Uri Geller treats spoons – work the thumb under every square millimetre of the label until it slides off.
6. What to do with the label after you’ve succeeded in your task is entirely up to you. You could slap it into a scrapbook, noting the time and date. You could stick it on your forehead and pretend to be a cyclops. You could roll it into an imaginary cigarette. Or – as a friend of mine once did – you could write out your CV on a huge piece of card and decorate the edges with peeled-off Budweiser labels. He actually got the job as well.
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