http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/John_Mann/history.htm

Is a web site on the history of bottled beer from a British angle.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Cathy Spude" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, March 17, 2003 8:00 PM
Subject: To clarify: beer in glass bottles


> 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
>