On Packaging: From the Steine to Mini-Kegs and Beyond

I missed our most recent DC Beer show podcast recording but I took great pleasure listening to our guests, Emma and Greg Whelan.

Emma had served Astro Lab, the brewery that preceded Third Hill, for years and the last beer that I ordered which she served me was a Dark Mild. Fittingly, it plays in my head wonderfully, possibly tasting better in my memory than it did in real life, no small feat. There is something ephemeral about dark mild, both literally in the sense that when I had it, Astro Lab had only a few more months in business, but also because when a brewery makes one, you know it will take them some time to make it again as the style does not sell as well as IPA.

Hearing her voice reminded me of another friend with a lovely lilt, your favorite beer historian’s favorite beer historian, Ron Pattinson. Ron has brewed two beers with me in DC on his birthday, in 2018. Another was brewed last fall. Ron loves mild and so I guess I somehow made the spurious connection between Emma and Ron and mild?

Digging into the DC Beer show, I listened to Emma discussing different types of packaging. For the uninitiated when I say packaging I mean the type of package your beer comes in. Does your beer come in a keg or a can? Does it come in a bottle? What size is the bottle? Is it 12 oz or 11.2. Careful now! They look awfully similar…

The big brewers package one beer in multiple packages. It seems big brewers package their biggest-selling beer in as many packages as possible! Imagine! Which may lead you to the question, do you want your Bud Light in a 12 oz can or a 12 oz bottle? Or maybe you want it in a 16 oz can? Craft beer nationally has been shifting to 16 oz cans, and locally we’ve seen brewers offer 16 oz cans for the ballpark. Consider Atlas Brew Works’ Bullpen Pilsner, Port City’s Optimal Wit, and DC Brau’s Old Time all in aluminum in 16 oz pints at Nats Stadium.

In my local Safeway I can buy 19.2 oz of IPA, Double IPA, Belgian-style Triple, or Sour Triple, from Bells, Hardywood, Cigar City, and Victory, respectively. It’s purely anecdata but it seems a few years ago that I saw this size can, 19.2 oz, only at Nats’ Stadium. Which brings us to what Emma Whelan recanted on the show:

And I think both Greg and I… have never bought packaged goods at this level before, and we’re just blown away by how many different sizes and shapes of domestic beer… is available. And the one that the guy that comes in once is always the one that you haven’t got like twelve pack bottles, six pack bottles, six pack cans, four pack cans, one big tall boy. It’s like, oh my God. I guess I never bought domestic beer so I wasn’t aware that it came in so many formats. So I think it’s just like all of those things are new and interesting to me, but also having the awareness of when those sales reps come in and just giving them the time and the airspace.

Listening to her mention different options for beers, primarily domestic, made me go down the rabbit hole in my mind of what kinds of bottles beer has come in. Here in DC we’ve seen some interesting ones.

The first local off-the-beaten-path packaging that caught my attention was at least six years ago. Right Proper offered their rustic biere de garde, Baron Corvo, in a magnum bottle. The magnum is 1.5 Liters or about 50 ounces.

Over the years we’ve seen some very cool packaging that will likely never catch on. The Jereboam, which is 4.5 Liters, is a bottle size that may never catch on in the beer world. Considering the “mini keg,” is only half a liter bigger, perhaps this size of packaging will have more staying power locally?

Bluejacket recently offered their Hill House in 5 liter “mini kegs.” These kegs were referred to as a 5 liter “casks” per the social media post, “These mini casks are 100% naturally carbonated, just like a traditional cask, allowing drinkers to enjoy a pint of British real ale from the comforts of their own home.”

While we eagerly await the future of DC Beer, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention some beer packaging types that are largely lost in beer history.

Consider the “steinie” and not just because it’s so close to my last name. At one point in time, “the steinie” was a type of bottle, different from the “long neck” bottles. Miller Coors has a page on the bottle type, where they say the bottle was offered post prohibition to save on glass and shipping.

These ads which I’m bringing to your attention now, show the Steinie was in use in Baltimore, DC, Milwaukee, and New York. Note that in DC, the Steinie was spelled and sold as “Steine.” Is that purely a typo?

As you drink a beer, hard seltzer, cider, canned wine, ready to drink cocktail, non alcoholic beverage, or bottled water, consider the size and shape of the package your beverage comes in. If you really want to take a trip to the ancestral origins of packaging, consider the drinking gourds, horns, and goat bladders, our ancestors used to toast with.