Someday, I will brew my own beer, and I will bottle it in stubby bottles

 Posted by on 16 December 2009  Vintage/Retro
Dec 162009
 

stubby_beer_bottle_labatt_133

Just putting that out there.

One time, I was talking to the landlady of an apartment I was renting, and she was complaining about boxes full of old beer bottles that were clogging up her store room. They were stubbies — probably four dozen of them, if I remember rightly. She offered them to me, but at the time, I couldn’t take them.

I kick myself now.

On a related note, anyone know where I can get a few dozen old-style stubby beer bottles? (I’d prefer vintage ones, I don’t really want to drink a bunch of Red Stripe and save the bottles.)

Grant Hamilton

  • Wynston

    Do stubby bottles affect the taste at all or is it purely a nostalgia thing?

  • thebanana

    Fun fact: The ’68 Dodge Polara dashboard was perfectly shaped to hold an open stubby bottle firmly in an upright position.

  • http://www.absurdintellectual.com/ Grant Hamilton

    @Wynston – I don’t think the shape of the glass should affect the taste, although bottle vs. can does. But the stubby, if you listen to its proponents, does have some advantages. They’re thicker, so sturdier, and they last longer being filled and refilled. Plus, their lower centre of gravity makes them less wobbly than an American longneck. But for me, it’s primarily a nostalgia thing.

    @thebanana — all cars should.

  • thebanana

    Gather round, kids, and I’ll tell you a story. In the old days, long neck bottles were the norm. Then sometime around 1970 or so, the stubby was born. Who really knows why, but the brewers, the guys who shlepped them around and the beer vendors liked them because a lift of 12 or 24 was easier to transport and store. But, as with all good things the stubby style came to an end within the decade because the people who actually drank the beer liked the style of the long neck…more American, so to speak. Around the same time that the stubby was born, Heidelberg marketed their beer in an even more unusual shape. Can’t find a pic of it though. Put me down as one who misses the venerable stubby.