Colder Beer Is Better: A Review Of The BottleKeeper

While I can’t claim to be an overt connoisseur of beer — I drink what’s in front of me — I do know that the stuff tastes better when cold. How to keep your beer cold in hot climates has been a riddle for beer drinking Westerners for centuries and we have come up with many different solutions. Especially while traveling, where you’re often outside in hot climates, trying to keep your beer cold can become a real challenge. To these ends comes something called the BottleKeeper.

The BottleKeeper is basically a stainless steel bottle — think Klean Kanteen — that’s lined with neoprene and has a detachable bottom. To use it, get a cold beer, unscrew the bottom of the BottleKeeper, insert the beer, and then screw the bottom back on. That’s it. The beer will stay cold longer than you’d probably ever need it to.

As I’m sitting here testing out the BottleKeeper, it’s clear that it has three main functions:

1. It keeps beer cool — its prime function
2. It keeps beer protected. If you put a bottle in this thing it’s essentially barricaded within a stainless steel armor sheath. If you screw on the plastic top, which is adapted with a longer shank which allows for different size bottles, your open bottle of beer is adequately protected from spills. Now, the rubber seal in the cap doesn’t provide 100% spill-proof-ability, but it will keep your beer in the bottle in the face of errant knock-overs.
3. It keeps beer hidden. If you’re inclined to drink in places where it may not be particularly welcomed or legal, sticking your beer inside one of these stainless steel bottles is a good way to disguise it.

Now, the BottleKeeper probably shouldn’t be a part of someone’s standard long term travel rig, but on short trips to the tropics, beach vacations, or just hanging out with a beer in hot weather it really does the job. It also works far better than wrapping your beer in wet toilet paper.

The BottleKeeper comes in many colors and two sizes.

The BottleKeeper

First get a cold beer.

Put the BottleKeeper over the beer.

Close the bottom.

You’re ready to keep your beer cold.

The BottleKeeper is available here and can be purchased for $22-$30. Using the discount code “vagabondsong” will get you 15% off.