Time In A Bottle

Close to 2,000 beer bottles line six-row shelves that span an entire wall in a room at Duncan and Sharon McKinnon’s home in West Fork.

Duncan had collected a few items growing up, but soon after the couple met in 1994, Sharon says the “hardcore collecting” started. Their collection - bottles, glassware, coasters, growlers and matches from breweries - is tied to their travels in North America and international destinations. Most of the beer bottles they collect are contemporary, Duncan says.

“When we travel, we tend to go to breweries,” he says of their inspiration.

Breweries are a good place to meet the local people, support the local economy and understand what’s going on in the city, he says. Many of the items the couple have collected remind them of stories from their travels, he adds.

Part of the collection will be on display along with other collectors’ treasures during the Cabin Fever Reliever open house Saturday at the Shiloh Museum of Ozark History in Springdale. Duncan McKinnon says they will have a table to showcase various items and discuss the stories behind them.

When they first met, Sharon McKinnon says, she drank only Bud Light beer. Her husband likes “hoppy” beer, which she never enjoyed. Then she discovered a Thomas Kemper fruit beer in the mid-to-late 1990s at a brewery in Portland, Ore. It spurred her on to try other types, and she now really enjoys white and wheat beers, she says.

“Over the past two decades, he’s really brightened up my palate,” she says of her husband.

Duncan McKinnon says he travels to about 10 breweries a year, many with his wife, but he tends to visit additional places because of his work in archeology. He attends conferences across North America and usually looks up what breweries are nearby, he says. Along with picking up bottles on their travels, the couple also gets items from friends, most recently one fromGuatemala sent by a friend who works at CNN.

Duncan says they have also visited local breweries in Arkansas to collectbottles and will likely bring items on Saturday from Fossil Cove Brewing Co. in Fayetteville. He notes they will probably bring a growlette, which is a 32-ounce jug that fits about two beers, and is a new trend in breweries. A growler is a jug that holds four beers, he adds.

Labels are generally the attraction, Duncan McKinnon says. As a graduate student in archeology at the University of Arkansas, he says he is interested in looking at how things change over time. One type of beer they collect and can see the changes in is Samuel Smith’s Winter Welcome.

A friend in Austin, Texas, had suggested this beer, which comes out with a different design each year, hesays. The couple have bottles from every year since 1994.

“That one’s kind of cool because it shows the collection over time,” he says.

One of Sharon’s favorite bottles in their collection is Romulan Ale, which she got in Las Vegas. She said the beer in it was blue.

Some of their international bottles are from Belgium and England.

They have one from the Isle of Skye Brewery in Scotland, which they visited during their honeymoon, she says.

For the display Saturday, they will likely bring items with good stories behind them, she says.

“It’s our history,” she says.