The Origins and Life of the Export Beer Bottle by Bill Lockhart
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Bottles and Extras May-June 2007 49 The Origins and Life of the Export Beer Bottle By Bill Lockhart Virtually everyone is familiar with the The initial size for beer bottles was the quart, but export beer bottle, although most people smaller sizes soon began to emerge. By the 1790s, the who are not a part of either the collecting bottles became taller, but they were still noticeably shorter world or historical archaeologists may not and squatter than contemporary wine bottles [Figure 1]. know it by name. The familiar bottle is During this period, ales and porters were the standard in cylindrical, usually amber in color North America (Jones 1896a:74-79). Although many of (although it may come in aqua or colorless these bottles were free blown, more and more were made forms), with straight sides and a “swelled” with the dip mold process, where an open wooden mold neck. The style has become so pervasive was used to form the body shape, but the shoulder, neck in American culture that even many of the and finish were completed by hand. This was followed non-returnable bottle styles are in export by the Rickett’s mold that added two hinged sections at shape. But beer bottles have followed a long the top to form the shoulders and some of the neck (Jones and varied path from their early 1986a:87-89). Jones (1986:131) also observes that development. “bottles were getting progressively taller and narrower; the necks shorter and wider.” By the 1835-1855 period, The Earliest Beer Bottles the type of finish used on later beer bottles was developing British merchants shipped bottled beers, (cf. Jones 1986:69-71). But three more developments porters and ales to India (and certainly other were necessary before the stage could be set for the colonies including those in North America) invention of the export beer bottle. Figure 1: English by the late 17th century. These companies “Beer” Bottle also routinely exported the same items to Two-Piece Molds (Lindsey 2006) the United States in the 18th and 19th The earliest two-piece mold was hinged at the base centuries, a shown by American to allow the preformed shape on the end of the gaffer’s Turn-Molds or Paste-Molds advertisements (Jones 1986a:18-19). blowpipe to fit within the two halves [Figure 2]. The In this process, a two- Ales, porters and non-carbonated beer bottle was then blown into the mold, the mold opened piece mold, usually with a were all probably bottled as soon as a good and the bottle, complete except for the finish, was post or cup bottom, was stopper (the cork) was discovered. The removed. Although the process was used in the U.S. by smeared with a special bubbles that we equate with beer were about 1810, by the mid-19th century, post bottoms were “paste” that coated the entire conspicuously absent in these brews, so they inserted at the base of the mold to make a third piece. inside. A bottle was blown could be bottled and stored in thin-walled The molds became hinged at the sides for easier working, into the mold and turned containers without the danger of gas and bottle-makers’ initials or entire names could easily around to eliminate all mold leakage, explosion or breakage from be embossed on the post bottom (Jones & Sullivan lines. According to Jones and internal pressure, or spoilage. In the 1989:26-28). A cup bottom was also developed but was Sullivan (1989:31) and earliest bottles, there was no specialization used much earlier in small bottles. Large bottles, such Toulouse (1969:532), the of shapes, so virtually any liquid may have as beer bottles were usually blown into post-bottom molds technique was introduced to been bottled in virtually any adequately until the last decade of the 19th century. the U.S. “in the 1880s,” sized container. although patents were made English “wine” bottles developed in the 1870s. French distinctive characteristics ca. 1740, and champagne bottles, however, both “beer” and “wine” bottles were were made by the turn-mold virtually identical, “squat” with a “square” method at least as early as body when viewed from the side. It is 1865 (Switzer 1974:23-25). important to note, however, that these Although this process was not bottles could have contained practically any commonly used on beer form of liquid that was inert (i.e., did not bottles (much more common create a great deal of pressure, like on wine, champagne, and carbonation), both alcoholic and non- some whiskey bottles), some alcoholic. These bottles were thin-walled were made with turn-molds. and not made to withstand internal Some turn-mold bottles, pressure. Beer and wine bottles began to however, have embossed assume distinctive individual shapes during bases. Toulouse (1971:153) the 1760s. Wine bottles became taller and and Ayres and his associates more narrow, while beer bottles retained (1980:47) note that this was Figure 2: Two-Piece Mold their squat, wide bodies (Jones 1986b: apparently accomplished by (Lindsey 2006) 13-14). blowing the glass into the 50 May-June 2007 Bottles and Extras mold, turning the mold to remove the lines, then re-inserting the But that was about to change. bottle into a mold (possibly a dip mold) to create the embossing. The Bottle Research Group recorded a single turn-mold bottle Pasteurization and Bottling made by the Hermann Heye Glasfabrik in the collection excavated Louis Pasteur discovered that a sufficient amount of heat could at Fort Bowie, Arizona. destroy harmful bacteria in liquids. He applied his discovery to beer in 1870. Although he did not publish his findings until 1877, Champagne Bottles some brewers learned of his method and began to utilize it Jones (1986a:11-13) demonstrated that “champagne” bottles (Plavchan 1969:67-69). The most important of those brewers in were made by at least 1762 (and almost certainly earlier), but she the United States was Anheuser-Busch. cautioned that “there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that the Anheuser-Busch was successful in part because of a willingness ‘champagne’ bottles were intended exclusively for champagne or to innovate. One of the company’s most important innovations that they had the long sloping shoulder and high bell-shaped was the adaptation of the pasteurization process to beer in 1872, pushups so characteristic of the 19th century champagne-type when the company shipped bottled beer to several Texas towns bottles” [Figure 3]. (Hernon & Ganey 1991:30-31; Plavchan 1969:70; Wilson 1981:1).1 Once beer was pasteurized, it could be stored for a long Ceramic Ale and Porter Bottles time and shipped in bottles for a great distance. This meant that Ale and Porter were bottled in the United States from at least the local brewery with its reliance on keg-contained, draught beer 1844, usually in cork-stoppered, ceramic bottles. These bottles was to become less important. were generally discontinued after 1895 (Graci 1995:14), but some Of more interest in bottle dating, this marks the beginning of were still in use as soft drink bottles until at least the mid-1920s available, nation-wide bottled beer. The Year Book (1882:92) noted (cf. Lockhart 2000). For practical purposes, however, the ceramic that Anheuser-Busch was: containers became a dead end before the turn of the century. the first . to introduce bottled beer into the United States, and which, unknown a dozen years ago, is now kept in every Early Effervescent Beer Bottles grocery store, hotel and liquor house, and in nearly every family in the country. The creation of the trade has practically The Advent of Lager Beer destroyed the importation of English and German bottled beer In the 1840s, John Wagner introduced lager beer to the and ales, it has certainly reduced it by fully seventy-five U.S. in Philadelphia. Unlike the earlier brews, lager beer per cent. was “an effervescent malt beverage...brewed by using bottom- fermentation.” The beer is characterized by such terms as Anheuser-Busch’s First Beer Bottle “light” and “sparkling” (Downard 1980:106). By 1860, half Adolphus Busch, the driving force behind Anheuser- the beer made in America was lager, and it had become the Busch by 1872, had a problem. He had successfully adapted country’s unsurpassed favorite by the Civil War (Yenne the Pasteurization process to brewing and he could now ship 1995:27-28). Unfortunately, this lighter, sparkling beer had his beer virtually anywhere. For the first time in history, negative side – unlike its darker and heavier predecessors, bottled lager beer, with it effervescence, could be bottled. it quickly turned sour and spoiled (Wilson 1881:1). But what container could he use? As a result, prior to the application of pasteurization, The older, English beer bottles described above were the production of carbonated beer in the U.S. was a local too thin-walled to withstand the pressure of the industry. Beer could be shipped in kegs and barrels, carbonation in lager beer. The ceramic bottles used for but bottled beer tended to spoil in short order. Locally, centuries to contain ale and porter were too porous – most people just took their beer home in a bucket. the gas would leak through the walls of the container. This bucket eventually was called a “growler,” Glass was the obvious answer, but there was no time although the reason for that name seems to be lost to create a new bottle. Busch need a source of cheap, to history. The act of taking the beer home in this available containers.