Although I cannot remember the exact year, Anheuser Busch was the first shpper of
modern beer when the company adopted the new process of pasteurization about
1884.  My sources are at home.  If you want citations, let me know.  Rex Wilson's
Bottles on the Frontier is one source; also any good history of Anheuser Busch.
Prior to pasteurization, beer went sour if it was transported in bottles (I can't
remember why, but I think kegs would transport OK).

On the pre-railroad frontiers, of course, breakage was a problem with glass items.
Initially, beer was shipped in barrels, packed in sawdust to prevent breakage.  With
the greater availability of the railroads, locked wooden boxes were often used
(sometimes even steel boxes).  Soft drinks were shipped in similar containers.

Bill Lockhart


> 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