Worst Beer Protips?

Aah, protips have loopholes.

 

Excellent post, as always. It illuminates a further point, that the lightstruck quality often happens at retail. I can't tell you how many times i've passed up bottles sitting in full sunlight.

There are definitely errors in the article, I hesitated posting it as the author isn't always reliable. Specifically, the Fantome quote was referring to early 2010's bottles that had off notes of smoke, band-aids, and rubber, not skunk. This was traced to hidden damage to the brewing installation, which has since been repaired.

I'd be interested to learn more about the history of green glass in Belgium and France where it's still very common today. WWII depleted many resources in Europe, not to mention the copper brewing installations in occupied parts of Belgium during the war. Would be nice to find a source for the post-WWII brown glass shortage, other than a recycled clickbait article.

 

Pedantry and technicalities are at the heart of any proper geekdom

 

After hearing about this claim for a number of years I thought it was interesting to find out that in 1948 there was a new olive green beer bottle introduced to the returnable bottle system in Sweden (which made up pretty much all of Swedish beer sales at the time). It was interesting in light of those claims I thought. I have yet to find an explanation for the color change however. One can find references to green beer bottles in Sweden from the 1930s so the concept of a lighter colored bottle wasn't new, but the timing of the launch of the olive green bottle has me intrigued.

Here's a line up showing returnable bottles from the 1880s, 1901, 1930, 1937, 1959 (olive green), 1968 and 2013 respectively. The emerald green bottle came out in the 1960s from what I've gathered. Below is an advertisement from "the early 1960s" showing the line up of Sweden's largest brewery at the time which shows the olive green model in use.

Olive green bottle produced in 1950:

 

This! I'm always surprised how many people don't know this. Another fun fact, there are no saguaro in New Mexico.

 

Yeah, I've looked around some (there used to be a BA who swore by the "shortage" theory and would bring it up all the time in such threads but could never cite a reliable source from the era). In the US, in the pre-Pro era 19th century, a large percentage of beer bottles were clear (aka "white" or "flint" in glass maker lingo) at least based on what color ads still exist - and many of those were drawn/painted, rather than photos, of course.

I guess Schlitz's "Brown Bottle" campaign in the 1900-1920 does indicate that they were among the first to use that color bottle exclusively. Although, go figure - their 1930's discount brand, Old Milwaukee, bucked the convention and was bottled in green glass. For the most part, in the US the convention was that ales were generally in green bottles, and lager beer was in brown glass by the post-Repeal era with many notable exceptions.

And examining older US and imported green bottles will show they were often a much darker (some kinda brownish-green as in @Crusader post's 1950 image), thicker, almost opaque bottles and might have protected the beer longer than the lighter green (see-through) bottles of today.

I once asked Philip Van Munching (author of Beer Blast and heir to Van Munching Heineken import co., now defunct) about the "post-WWII brown glass shortage" theory and he never heard it. I'd think one would have to figure out what minerals/chemicals were used to make brown vs green bottles and if there was a shortage of that. I could see if green glass bottles were cheaper (thinner, not mfg. for numerous usages, etc.) and since beers exported to the US were unlikely to be returned for refilling, it making sense to send the cheapies.

As for Schlitz Brown Bottle Ads, local competitor Miller, with their High Life brand noted for being the clear glass, had a response.

 

This discussion made me think of an account from 1840-41 from a journey to Germany by a Swedish author (published in 1842). On the beer drunk in Munich he writes:

"The taste is somewhat bitter and in no way pleasant. Apart from this its cellar-coldness is, especially in the winter-time, unpleasant. One can feel dizzy from it and also freeze, so that the teeth are chattering in the mouth."

Winter time would be the time when the lower gravity, lower hopped winter beer was served, as opposed to lager beer, summer beer, a distinction the author doesn't mention but which is worth keeping in mind.

Concerning the cellar coldness the author writes:

"In Munich they have in this respect such a delicate taste, that the beverage from a 1 to 2 hour open keg is rejected, and when the block is heard squeaking, by which the kegs are lifted from the cellar, the mugs are emptied during general jubilation, while each and everyone hurries to get a drop from the new keg."

 

Patrik, how is this for irony?

Just a few minutes ago in a PM to Chris I discussed the topic of Germans in the 1800's preferring to drink their beers at cellar temperatures (i.e., warm by American standards).

Cheers!

 

It's certainly an interesting topic, yet I wouldn't dare claim to have a complete understanding of the serving of beer in the US vs in Bavaria in the 1800s. A few points are worth keeping in mind however. By the time that Bavarian beer makes its way to the US, and Sweden, i.e the 1840s, ice cellars are an established practise. Ice and lager beer will go hand in hand in the countries which adopt the brewing of this new beer. So why not ice down the beer when it is being served too? In the US one finds early references to "ice boxes" from the 1860s (Ludwig Häcker), essentially early refridgerators containing blocks of ice cooling a cask of lager beer, and later bottled beer. In Europe a keg of lager might be brought up from the cellars into a locale while not being iced down, remaining in the locale until it is emptied or else removed (the Swedish author noting the discriminating nature of Munich beer drinkers not wanting to drink 1-2 hour old tapped beer, hinting that a keg tapped 1-2 hours ago isn't seen as a big deal in Sweden). That would be enough to give the beer a different temperature I imagine, in the summer I usually take the beers out of the refridgerator 3-4 hours before I'm going to drink them to give them a chance to come up to temperature.

Additionally it seems clear that the breweries in Munich were in the forefront of using ice cellars, whereas breweries in the country side relied on the old underground cellars for longer, which endured incrementally warming temperatures during the summer months until ice cellars and artifical refridgeration came into general use. If the lager cellar in mid summer held 6-7 degrees Celsius, the beer poured into the mug of a beer drinker, after sitting behind the bar of a tavern for a few hours, might have been slightly warmer. Whilst an American getting his beer straight from an ice box might have been colder.

Here one might bring up the topic of "ice water", which is referenced by a European observer by the name of Cluss, writing around the turn of the century:

"And now for the second typical aspect, namely the flavor profile of the American. For him beer is - to borrow an expression from my esteemed colleague Bleisch- more of a refreshment than an enjoyment. To start with they only want to drink it ice cold, since they are already accustomed to this through their beloved ice water, or more accurately put, misled."

Here drinking a glass of water with ice is seen as an American practise by the German observer, a kind of frivolity of the New World, as late as the turn of the century.

In a way it's similar I guess to the difference in serving temperature between keg beer and cask ale.

To a Swede in the 1840s both a brewery ice cellar and a tavern ice box might have seemed like innovations, or novelties.

 

Yup, Americans in the 1800's liked their beverages very cold including their beers.

I will send more information via PM.

Cheers!

 

Came across this advertisement from the 1970s which contrasts Skål International Beer (brewed by Pripps) in a "profile bottle" against a slew of Swedish brands (among which is Pripps Öl and Three Towns, owned by Pripps) in the standard returnable bottle, showing the full color scale of returnable beer bottles in use in Sweden by that time: brown, olive green and emerald green.

 

The worst pro-tip I received was that I should always pour Coors Lite over ice. Given the flavor (or lack thereof) perhaps this is not such a bad "pro-tip."

 

This was the same advice voiced by Ken Pavichevich for Baderbrau beer circa 1991. He referred to it as "the pilsner pour".

 

I had a 67 Valiant (slant six) that I drove almost 500k miles. California 3 times and once up into Canada to Vancouver and beyond. Many trips between Greensboro, Richmond and New York. That was one helluva car. We shuttled a bunch of Ringnes and National Premium between these cities.

 

It's a good thing they kept this ad to 30 seconds. At about 00:33, those "beechwood-aged bubbles" would have been a distant memory.