Vintage beer and ale bottles from Society for Historical Archaeology.

Vintage beer and ale bottles from Society for Historical Archaeology.

I’ve mentioned a few times before in articles that my parents were old bottle collectors back in the 70s and beer bottles were a frequent sight. The earliest ones were actually pottery bottles. I thought I’d take a look at the history of the beer bottle and see where on the timeline my parent’s collection would fall.

Beer has been around for a very, very long time and was originally created by women in Mesopotamia about 7,000 years ago. According to “It Was Women Who Invented Beer” by Cervezas Ambar, it was from the intuitive desire to create nourishing food that women mixed grain, water and herbs and then cooked it, which then later fermented. Voila! Beer was born! Also to the credit of women is the later addition of the hops flower which gives beer its distinct, bitter taste while at the same time serving as a preservative.

Apparently, there’s some evidence of even earlier beers that were more like porridge than an actual beverage. Stored and served in bowls, straws made from natural reeds were used to avoid ingesting the bitterest solids.

From an article called “A short history of bottled beer” by Martyn Cornell at the blog Zythophile (zythophile.co.uk) there’s an old story about an English rector who, in the late 1500s, took a bottle of home-brewed ale with him on an afternoon fishing trip. The bottle was full and corked and it stayed behind in the grass… Dr. Alexander Nowell had forgotten about it. When he returned a few days later, he “found no bottle, but a gun, such was the sound of the opening thereof.” (from Thomas Fuller’s “History of the Worthies of Britain.” The ale had fermented and thus the first bottled (at least under pressure) beer was born.

The first bottled beer was presented in pottery bottles since their strength could hold even with the pressure of fermentation. The first glass bottles were hand-blown and much more fragile. Glass bottled beer continued to become more popular, though it still was only for the most affluent people. Everyone else had to simply serve from the tap of their cask into a cup. There was also a bit of backlash regarding bottled beer. Some felt it distorted the true, sweet flavor too much… turning it bitter. Iron bottle molds were invented in the 1800s and glass bottled beer production increased even more. There still was the problem of having to employ hundreds of “corkers”… men who would use a mallet to pound a cork into the newly filled bottles.

It wasn’t until 1879 that Englishman Henry Barrett invented the screw top beer bottle which changed the industry drastically. Much cheaper to produce, even after American William Painter invented the crown cork (similar to today’s caps,) the screw top remained… especially for quart size bottles so drinkers could save some of their beer for later. Soon, also, pasteurization was developed, lengthening the shelf life of bottled beer even more. World War I would push bottled beer to make up 24% of all beer consumed as it could be easily transported versus shipping large wooden casks of the sudsy brew.

Interestingly, the use of brown glass was to protect the beer from sunlight which could “spoil” it. Dark green glass was used as well. And the shape of the beer bottle I thought for sure would have something to do with keeping carbonation under control (a small spout gave less opportunity for explosion) but it was actually shaped that way to save money. It was cheaper to produce smaller caps than a wide-mouth seal.

Bottled beer began to slide in popularity once canned brew hit the market in 1935. Much cheaper to produce than glass, tin could also be crushed and recycled much more easily. The 1990s saw a fairly strong resurgence in bottled beer during the “grunge” scene with bottled premium brands. Then, along came the microbrewing craze. From home brews to artisanal breweries, bottled beer was back and has maintained its strong presence right up to today.

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