Canadian beer in "stubby" bottles

[Jeffy Boy]

I was having a cold one today on my patio (unfortunately, from a LONG NECK bottle ), and was thinking of the good old days when all beer came in those nice, rounded stubby bottles . I thought to myself "if someone came out with beer in stubby bottles again, they would make a killing".

Have any Canadian breweries tried going back to stubbies, or are the logistics involved too much to overcome? Or was there a law passed, banning them forever, that I don't know about?

[rgruby]

Mill St. Brewery in Toronto is bottling their non-organic beers in stubbies. (The tankhouse ale is excellent by the way). Only available in the liquor stores, not bees stores. And, I'm pretty sure they are not distributing much if anything outside of the GTA.

Brick is also bottling some of their brews in stubbies. They had a big fight with the beer store to be able to do this - I'm not sure if it has been settled yet, but I think they're still selling some brews in stubbys.

Cheers,

Geoff Ruby

[WHT]

Funny but I can only tjink of a few beers here in the states that come that way. I wonder if it an industry thing?

[Kenk]

Heritage Brewery in Ottawa is using stubbies also. The ones I tried are also not screw top.

Good beer too.

http://www.heritagebrewing.com/

[malcolmjolley]

It's funny, because my dad was so excited when they brought back the long neck in the 80's. I thought is had always been stubbies. For more history:

http://www.stubby.ca/

[Marlene]

Brick is also bottling some of their brews in stubbies. They had a big fight with the beer store to be able to do this - I'm not sure if it has been settled yet, but I think they're still selling some brews in stubbys.

Cheers,

Geoff Ruby

Update on the Brick stubby battle Brick Stubbies

[Mayhaw Man]

Funny but I can only tjink of a few beers here in the states that come that way. I wonder if it an industry thing?

The real reason that stubbies became the "bottle of Canada" is that they were interchangable between breweries. All of the breweries had lines that ran them-and if your drivers happened to come back to the brewery with somebody elses bottles, so much the better as that just cut down on glass cost for the breweries.

Stubbies were durable and easy to clean because of their shape. They were made of very heavy glass and the number of turns on them were incredible (although not nearly as many turns as those "caguamas or ballenas" (1 liter bottles) in Mexico-those things are more like bricks than bottles). Many of these breweries were probably glad to see them go in terms of ease of use and economically (the cost of washing and cleaning often outweighs the cost of new, cheap glass and bottle washing operations are a mess to run and take up huge amounts of otherwise useful space in breweries) and at the time that they were doing it Canadian Breweries were watching the Miller/Bud wars and seeing what kind of sales could be generated with inovation and rediculous amounts of advertising and sponsorship.

[mongo_jones]

does length of neck make any difference to beer-experience? i can't see why it would, but then again i can't see why rich people don't send me money either.

[Marlene]

does length of neck make any difference to beer-experience? i can't see why it would, but then again i can't see why rich people don't send me money either.

I can't either really. (rich people sending me money or not in this case )

I'm not a huge beer drinker but I couldn't say. I do know there was a big concern when they first came in that the long necked bottles could be more easily used as weapons in a pub fight for example.

I liked the stubby bottles

[Mayhaw Man]

does length of neck make any difference to beer-experience? i can't see why it would, but then again i can't see why rich people don't send me money either.

Actually, the less head space the better. The bottling (or canning for that matter) process is done in a way that allows (even for a millisecond on high speed lines) air to enter a system that has been closed since fermentation. To combat this the bottles or cans are encouraged (either with a tiny, thin stream of hot water or a blast of CO2 or nitrogen to foam after the filler releases the bottle and it heads for the capper (or the seamer in the canning case). In this way the amount of total atmosphere in the bottle is reduced to a minimum.

Many companies now use (especially smaller breweries that have slower lines ) O2 absorber crowns that are designed to "eat" the small amount of residual air in the neck of the bottle.

Good, basic description of what I just muddled through above

[mongo_jones]

brooks,

i refuse to read your post till you close all your parentheses.

but seriously, i guess that makes sense. once a bottle has been opened and beer poured i'm guessing this is a non-issue and it doesn't matter whether you fill a glass to the top or not. but why don't breweries just fill beer bottles all the way to the top before sealing them?

mongo

[rgruby]

does length of neck make any difference to beer-experience? i can't see why it would, but then again i can't see why rich people don't send me money either.

For some reason, long necked bottles foam over more easily than the stubbies did. For that reason alone, I say, bring back the stubbies!

Cheers!

[Mayhaw Man]

brooks,

i refuse to read your post till you close all your parentheses.

but seriously, i guess that makes sense. once a bottle has been opened and beer poured i'm guessing this is a non-issue and it doesn't matter whether you fill a glass to the top or not. but why don't breweries just fill beer bottles all the way to the top before sealing them?

mongo

(I am terrible about that. (parenthetically speaking, of course.

(I will begin sending you all of my posts for editing, this should correct the problem for both of us

You need to leave room for some expansion as the CO2 goes from a liquid to a gas as the beer warms (particularly when the bottles are destined for a pasteurizer after bottling.

(And I am not going to read yours until you learn to hit the shift key and capitalize.

[mongo_jones]

(And I am not going to read yours until you learn to hit the shift key and capitalize.

but i don't have a shift key on my keyboard...it is either this or all caps...

[Kenk]

The stubby is a much more practical bottle.

It is much easier to carry a case of 24 stubbies under each arm than the long necks; they take much less room in the fridge. You don't need as any where as much vertical space. They hold the cold better, much less external surface area. The bottles are less likely to break and can be recycled with many more cycles.

I also thought the Canadian breweries are still reusing and washing their bottles.

I suspect this is still true.

Another really practical use of the stubby is when you would see one in the movies you would know it was a Canadian movie and stop watching. This would save you a lot of aggravation.

[Jeffy Boy]

Another really practical use of the stubby is when you would see one in the movies you would know it was a Canadian movie and stop watching.  This would save you a lot of aggravation.

Unless it's the movie "Strange Brew", for which I believe the stubby won best supporting actor.

[HKDave]

The stubby was the only shape of bottle for most of my life in Canada ('60s to '80s), with one exception - the few years in the '70s where Heidelberg somehow was allowed to use a unique bottle. I switched to Heidelberg for those few years - it made my beer easier to locate at parties!

The stubby had another advantage: it kept your beer cold for a longer time. Thicker walls and less surface area.

I guess it made too much sense to survive.

[Jason Perlow]

The Stubby Is Back

[Jason Perlow]

Funny but I can only tjink of a few beers here in the states that come that way. I wonder if it an industry thing?

Red Stripe (from Jamaica) is in a stubbie, right? I can't think of any others.

[Jason Perlow]

Classic Stubby Bottles

[Mayhaw Man]

Funny but I can only tjink of a few beers here in the states that come that way. I wonder if it an industry thing?

Red Stripe (from Jamaica) is in a stubbie, right? I can't think of any others.

We considered using Stubbies to pack Turbodog in at one point. The stopper was that the only plant making them was the Vitro Plant in Trinidad. Apparently all of the production was going to Red Stripe.

I remember that PBR and Falstaff (before Jax closed in New Orleans-so late 60's early70's used them as well) used them in the 70's.

[Jeffy Boy]

Red Stripe (from Jamaica) is in a stubbie, right? I can't think of any others.

I was all over Red Stripe on a trip a while ago to Jamaica. I thought "so this is where they shipped all our stubbies"! (along with our 70's-era GM cars...)

Unfortunately Red Stripe really isn't a very good beer. Helps put out the jerk fires, though!

[jariggs]

National Bohemian (aka. Natty Boh) from Baltimore used to come in stubbies up until the plant was sold and moved out of Maryland (mid-nineties?). We used to call 'em hand grenades in college. Also, I remember a beer named Schmidt's coming in the same bottles, not sure where that was made. The bottles seemed even shorter and stubbier than the red stripe ones. I'll try to find a picture.

[cakes]

I couldn't figure out what you people were talking about until I went to the web site and saw the pictures. Can't say I have ever even seen one. At first I thought you were talking about the big mouths, as in Schmidt. They were a good idea, I think but they were not refillable.

Had a friend who drank them cause they were cheap.

Cakes

[Mayhaw Man]

Mickey's Malt Liquor used to come in those big mouth bottles. I still can feel the pain in my hand that would occur after standing behind the bar for 8 hours opening those things on Wednesday night for the "Big Mouth Special".