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I just finished bottling my 5th batch and would like opinions on Bottling vs Kegging. I don't mind bottling right now as I am still just a rookie, but these is a bit of cleaning involved with it. I do like that I can give some of my beer away for others to taste, but wondering if I should keg later down the road. Thanks.

Depends on how much you're drinking. Kegging requires a fair bit of upfront cash, as well as space (places to store your kegs and a kegerator). The foot print is larger, but the effort much less. If you're brewing a fair bit, it can pay off pretty quickly in hours saved. If you want to take beer with you, you can also just fill a growler or fill some bottles with a beer gun or similar.

Kegging is expensive up front. But as far as I'm concerned the cost is worth the convenience. Bottling takes time and work, kegging is very quick and easy. And storing a few kegs and a mini fridge or small freezer doesn't take up all that much more room than boxes and boxes of beer does. I've been kegging for about 6 months now and I would only consider bottling for beers I intend to age long term

Kegging is the way to go. Start small with CO2 and 1 keg. Get a free fridge off of Kijiji and a picnic tap for serving and you`re all set. No more washing bottles and the beer ages in bulk so every pint is perfect. Maybe I`m lazy, but I only bottled once and that was enough for me.

KB1138 wrote:And storing a few kegs and a mini fridge or small freezer doesn't take up all that much more room than boxes and boxes of beer does

This is the truth right here. I can fit a lot more beer in my keezer in keg form than I could in bottles. Now if only someone out there made square kegs so I could really jam the sucker full...

imagine if you only had to wash 2 bottles...

MitchK wrote:Now if only someone out there made square kegs so I could really jam the sucker full...

Hmmmm.... Square kegs. I like it!

I bottled exclusively for 10 years or so, filling thousands of them I'm sure. I switched to kegging when I moved this year, since I had an extra fridge and somewhere to put it. Kegging is great in a lot of ways. A keg takes up less space than 55 bottles, I can pour as much or as little as I want, it keeps the beer away from light and heat, other advantages probably. Also, it looks cool, and gives you something to put stickers and magnets on.

Bottling does still have some advantages though:
To start, it's incredibly cheap.
I don't find the time difference to be as big as I thought I would. If you had to clean a bunch of used bottles from the recycling depot, that would suck, but if you get in the habit of just giving them a quick rinse every time you pour, that's probably enough for most bottles. Just keep them in circulation and then they're clean and ready to go for next time, they'll just need to be sanitized.
There's no real setup. With kegs, you may have to build a keezer, and get all of your lines set up. Used kegs often come filthy and need to be taken apart for a good cleaning.
Bottles are also good for any beer that you intend to keep for a while. Sours, brett finished, wood aged, or even just stronger beers that you plan on saving. I don't put something in a keg unless I think it'll be gone in three months (which is still most beers). My beer for the December exchange will all be bottled, because it's a winter warmer and I don't want to tie up a keg with it.

I have bottled for 3ish years and have no plans on moving to kegs. I like the variety that bottling affords, and I especially enjoy seeing how a beer develops over time (difficult to do in a keg).

When someone comes over and is interested in trying my homebrew bottling allows me to have 5+ or sometimes 10+ different beers that I can offer them, which is nice.

You can have the best of both worlds if you keg beers that should be drunk fresh and bottle beers that can benefit from aging, but I've noticed that many people don't bother to bottle anything after they move to kegs.

I moved to kegging not for convenience (though I love that aspect) but because I mainly brew hop forward styles and I think if you want the most out of those, kegging is a must.

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I think many homebrewers who have the budget to keg their beer will be really happy that they did. You can always pick up a blichmann beer gun and fill bottles easily right from the keg. Your shelf-life should be theoretically longer in the keg since there is no light, and it should be kept cold at all times. The other reason to keg is that if/when you start making 10 gallon or 15 gallon batches you really won't want to bottle of it up. If you have the budget I would highly suggest it .