A previous post on the beer bottle Christmas tree shows a Christmas tree made essentially from empty Grolsch beer bottles (and here’s a list of other things you can build with beer bottles). Here are some instructions for how you can make one of your own, in time for Christmas this year - as you’ll see from the pictures, it’s simple, but you have to remember a few important things.

Bulding a beer bottle Christmas tree is a pretty straightforward exercise.

Choosing Your Bottles

Now, I mean this. You must choose one kind of beer and stick with it. You can’t choose from a variety of beers simply because different beers come in differently shaped bottles. Also, I’d advise against beer bottles that are clear and not colored:

They’re common but they won’t look like a Christmas tree once stacked up, because they won’t look green (so it’ll just look like a stack of beer bottles, not a Christmas tree). Even brown beer bottles would look OK. Green bottles are best. Remember also that the bottles are made of glass, and will be dangerous if they smash.

The number of bottles you will need depends on how high and wide you want the tree to be, how much space you have and how wide each bottle is. For a six level tree, here are some appropriate numbers:

1
7
15
30
60
120

That adds up to 233 bottles, or approximately ten cases of beer.

How do I get that many bottles?

Well, there’s an obvious and fun way to do it. If you decide not to go that way, you could check the bottle recycling depots to see if they have any empty ones lying around. This should not be too hard if you go for a popular brand of beer. Alternatively, you could wait a major event is held.

Preparation

Once you’ve gathered all the bottles, for the love of God, wash them all out. It will take you a little time to do, but it is well worth it. If you’re going to leave the tree standing for all twelve days of Christmas, the stack will start to smell. A LOT. Wash them out with water at the minimum. I’d use soap, but of course you don’t need much. At this point you could also consider removing the labels. Stack the bottles upside down to dry once you’ve finished washing.

Next you should be aware that glass bottles are slippery: the glass holds very little friction. This means you shouldn’t just rely on the bottles to hold up the tree structure. It also means that you could consider practicing with plastic bottles instead of glass - if they fall over, there’s no significant damage done. You can use sticky tape to keep the plastic bottles together.

Stacking

The most important thing to remember when it comes to stacking the bottles is to build each layer so that it can support the one above it. Three bottles is the minimum number you need on any level other than the top level.

Clear the space where you want the tree to go. If you want a stable setup, you will need either several round pieces of glass, or several round pieces of wood (plywood would work well). If you decide to use wood, which should be easier to work with than glass, paint it black or green so that the levels can’t be seen. Theflat layer itself only needs to have the same diameter as the layer of bottles it is supporting (not the bottles below it).

In my experience, the size of the support panel is roughly (n x d/pi) in centimeters, where n is the number of bottles and d is the bottle diameter. If you’re using 120 bottles at the base level and 60 bottles at the next level, and each bottle has a diameter of 8cm, then the first layer will have a diameter of around 150cm. As I say, this will vary depending on your bottles!

Once you’ve laid out a layer of bottles, place the glass or wood on the top. Do this gently - it becomes riskier as you go up the tree.

Decoration

Depending on how stable your tree is, add the decorations at the end. If you’re using electric lights, you can really only effectively add the lights once the tree has been built, because each layer is separate. You can add decorations as you progress but I think it’s a risky proposition. And you’re done!

Update: here’s a list of other things you can build with beer bottles.