I've brought beer back and forth from Europe and the states many times and never had any customs/VAT issues. I've had one or two bottles break, but that would be out of hundreds so I'd consider that to be pretty good odds. I tend to wrap each bottle in a sock (clean or dity depending on how you want your bottle to smell I guess) or t-shirt and then put a few wrapped bottles into some sort of plastic bag, preferably ziploc or something. I think that the weight limit flying from USA to Europe is 50 pounds per piece of luggage now-might want to keep an eye on that since the weight can add up fast if you're talking about alot of beer!
