Sunday’s ad is for Goebel Beer, from 1948. Sold in “the Bantam bottle,” which I assume was 7 or 8 ounces, I think you’d have to sell a lot more bottles of your beer just to equal what your competitor was selling in the larger 12-oz. bottles. Whatever the case, “The world’s largest selling beer in small bottles” seems like a dubious distinction, and one that doesn’t seem likely to sway consumers. I’d be asking myself “what’s wrong with their beer if they’re advertising is concentrating on the small size of their bottles?”
Yep, seven ounces. Little Kings, Stroh’s and Schlitz, and others had sevens also. Rolling Rock’s well known pony bottles were ubiquitous on Virginia and Maryland beaches. One could finish the bottle before the beer got warm.
Alec, how would you know that?
Anheuser-Busch still distributes 10-oz. bottles of Budweiser to Maryland’s Eastern Shore and Puerto Rico.
Late chiming in on this one, but some “marketing genius” created this size for “lawnmower” brew (in contrast to Old Foghorn, whose “nips” made absolute sense)..
I’d think that small bottles were aimed at women (& maybe the “shot & beer” guys); the side benefit being that the profit margin was BIG – back in the 70’s, 8-packs of 7oz’s sold for as much as/more than a 6-pack. Miller, was the 1st of the “Big 3” to do the “ponies”; Bud followed within a year; Schlitz tried it, but got out quickly – by mid 70’s, they were losing BIG ground to Bud (adding ” the Bull” staved it off for awhile – they beat A-B & Miller into that market & did a lot of TV ads to promote it – to the detriment of the beer, as it’s evolved).
Economics of creating a different bottling line/temporalrily modifying an existing one even then would give the “beancounters” fits. Bud gave it up after 5-10 yrs; Miller, being 1st in, was last out. Historic oddity is that Country Club Malt Liquor sold only in 8-oz cans for a long time (those hit the market late 50’s/early 60’s). – now, you find it only in big cans/32 or 40-oz bottles.
Regional breweries like Rolling Rock & Little Kings probably have more latitude than the megas regarding bottling lines. Little Kings (info gleaned from its website) began in 1958; product is available in various packs of the small green bottles/12-oz “tall slim” cans – here’s the link to a single product “niche” brewery:
http://www.littlekingsbeer.com/main.html
Would be interesting to do a side-by-side blind taste/rating of Little Kings & Gennesee Cream – I’ve had both (which are palatable, but not spectacular), but not when in serious tasting mode.