Monday’s ad is for Schlitz, from the 1930s. Touting their new smaller steinie brown bottles, flanked by an actual stein on either side, I love that the neck label reads “Bottled at the Brewery.” Is that really a selling point customers would care about? Were other breweries bottling their beer elsewhere?
Certainly over here in the UK until (guesswork for now) the 1900s, lots of Guinness and Bass was shipped in casks and then bottled at point of sale in wine and spirit merchants’ shops on the high street. ‘Bottled at the brewery’ can be seen on a lot of old beer labels and I guess suggested to consumers that the beer hadn’t been watered down, adulterated or otherwise screwed up.
Back in the day there used to be neighborhood bottling companies. I always assumed they bottled soda pop. Maybe some of them bottled beer too. Wouldn’t be that big of a stretch.
I know in PA, back in the day, breweries would have depots in other towns. Maybe some of them shipped the beer from the brewery and bottled it there.
It’s an interesting question.
I always wondered why the steinie bottle is called that. The ad copy suggests it is because it evokes the idea of cool beer drunk from the pictured stoneware mugs. However, nothing in the shape of the steinie bottle really recalls a German stein, or krug. Just searching randomly, this site offers a different explanation, or rather two, scroll down to the steinie and stubby discussion:
http://www.sha.org/bottle/beer.htm#Export style
Initially it is suggested the steinie was an attempt, like the stubby, to offer the look of a can, but later in the text it is said the steinie was an evolution of the export bottle. Maybe Schlitz was gilding the lily due to the context.
Gary