While I do not have a copy, I have seen a letter from Anheiser Busch in
St. Louis to the post sutler at Fort Laramie in the 1880s not only
outlining the shipment of beer in bottles to Fort Laramie at that time,
but a reminder that the contract calls for return shipment of the EMPTY
bottles back to St. Louis for refilling.  Recycling in the 1880s.

talking with the site curator, during that time period, whiskey was
shipped to the fort in barrels, but beer was shipped in bottles.  they
have several sources of documentation for this.


Danny Walker
Wyoming Assistant State Archaeologist.



Cathy Spude wrote:

>Okay, it never even occured  to me that beer would be brewed and shipped
>long distances during the eighteenth or early nineteenth century, as some
>of the readers are starting to suggest. We all learn something new every
>day.
>
>My original query had to do with what was going on in the late nineteenth
>century. Something is rattling around in my brain telling me that improved
>glass bottle making techniques (especially automation, which considerably
>cut the cost of manufacture), combined with beer pastuerization
>technologies, combined with increased demands caused by mass German
>migrations after the 1850s had all sort of coelesced by the 1880s to make
>it as cheap and easy to ship beer in bottles as in kegs. What the
>break-even point is, I don't know.
>
>I can't dredge out of my increasingly elderly brain where I got this
>notion, and was hoping someone out there had dealt with the matter somewhat
>more recently than I. Perhaps Greg Dubell's references will help.
>
>However, Margan, I think there are far more variables than just pre- and
>post-Russian for you to be thinking about in Alaska. It is an Alaskan gold
>rush site I am dealing with myself. The point at which it becomes
>economically feasible to bring vast quantities of higher quality "imported"
>beers in bottles versus the locally brewed beers -- if a community had a
>brewery -- is one such variable. Early in a community's life, whisky may
>have been the drink of choice because it was easier to dispose of than
>dozens of bottles of beer if the customs agent came around. I am even
>beginning to suspect the proprietor of my saloon may have deliberately
>destroyed his stock to avoid the $100 fine (worth about $2000 in today's
>dollars).
>
>Any other thoughts?
>
>[log in to unmask]
>
>PS.
>
>The person who wrote the thesis you were looking at obviously did not see
>the report I wrote on a Russian deposit  in Sitka, Alaska. There was a good
>deal of bottle glass in that trash pit, much of it medicinal and related to
>the Russian hospital. To say the Russians had no bottle glass is totally
>erroneous.
>
>
>
>
>
>                      "Grover, Margan A POA02"
>                      <[log in to unmask]        To:       [log in to unmask]
>                      E.ARMY.MIL>                        cc:
>                      Sent by: HISTORICAL                Subject:  Re: beer in glass bottles
>                      ARCHAEOLOGY
>                      <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
>                      03/17/03 10:10 AM PST
>                      Please respond to
>                      HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY
>
>
>
>
>
>
>_When_ did they start shipping whiskey in bottles, for that matter? And
>_who_? I was just reading about 'spirits' for the normal working joe being
>shipped in barrels in the 19th C. to Russian America. However, they were
>getting most supplies from the HBC after 1839.  I was also reading a thesis
>that posed the idea that glass was not preferred for shipping because it
>broke easily (during overland trips, especially). He took it further,
>stating that the presence of bottle glass would therefore be an indicator
>of a post Alaska purchase (1867) occupation.
>
>
>What do you think of that?
>
>
>Margan Allyn Grover
>