Bottling 1880 - 1914

Bottled beers were becoming increasingly popular and this popularity had inspired brewers to come up with new methods for producing them.

For some breweries, such as Whitbread, bottled beer was starting to be a hugely significant part of their sales. Between 1901 and 1904, bottled beer increased its proportion of their total sales from 25% to 50%.

Whitbread Draught and Bottled sales 1901 – 1914
	total draught		Bottling		Burton
Year	barrels	%	barrels	%	barrels	%	Total
1901	538,097	73.63%	188,525	25.80%	4,153	0.57%	730,775
1902	546,043	72.92%	198,812	26.55%	3,975	0.53%	748,830
1903	552,383	71.00%	221,651	28.49%	3,998	0.51%	778,032
1904	546,402	69.40%	237,522	30.17%	3,379	0.43%	787,303
1905	538,584	67.67%	254,373	31.96%	2,983	0.37%	795,940
1906	526,766	64.32%	289,898	35.40%	2,361	0.29%	819,025
1907	513,881	61.49%	320,140	38.30%	1,749	0.21%	835,770
1908	477,470	58.97%	330,767	40.85%	1,459	0.18%	809,696
1909	456,638	56.14%	355,212	43.67%	1,481	0.18%	813,331
1910	446,477	55.72%	353,534	44.12%	1,325	0.17%	801,336
1911	459,908	53.81%	392,899	45.97%	1,564	0.18%	854,371
1912	464,539	49.95%	463,938	49.88%	1,548	0.17%	930,025
1913	436,095	51.17%	414,661	48.66%	1,415	0.17%	852,171
1914	418,402	49.38%	427,455	50.45%	1,415	0.17%	847,272
Source:
Whitbread Bottled Beer Sales ledger held at the London Metropolitan Archives, document number LMA/4453/D/02/16.

Not all types of beer were bottled. Most notable of the excluded types was Mild Ale. Despite being the most popular style at the time, it was rarely bottled. The name Porter also rarely appeared on a label. Not because it wasn’t bottled, but because bottled forms were marketed under another name, such as Luncheon Stout or Cooper.

Bottled beer types
Type	Min. OG	Max OG
Strong Ale	1069.5	1111.2
IPA	1055.6	1069.5
Light Pale Ale	1041.7	1050.0
Stout	1055.6	1077.8
Luncheon Stout	1044.5	1050.0
Source:
“A Treatise of Practical Brewing and Malting” by Frank Thatcher, 1907, page 477.

Several different methods of sealing bottles were employed. The oldest, and one still used today, was a cork. This was very effective, but relied very much on the quality of the cork itself. And good quality corks were expensive. It was also easy to disturb any sediment when removing it. There was also a risk of contamination from corks as they naturally contained moulds and yeasts. 

"there is nothing to beat a corked bottle beer — provided the cork is steamed and washed in a revolving wire drum to remove all dust and to soften and sterilise it." 

The most popular type was the internal screw stopper. They were usually made of very hard wood and fitted with a rubber washer. That such stoppers could be reused was a double-edged sword. As they used a standard thread, they would fit any brewer’s bottles. Unlike the bottles themselves, customers made little effort to return stoppers to the right brewery. Which meant that even if you bothered to buy good quality stoppers you would inevitably end up with inferior ones from your rivals.  I can remember buying quart bottles with this type of closure in the late 1970s.

Flip-top stoppers – like those used by Grolsch – weren’t much used in the UK, despite their popularity in the USA and the rest of Europe. Its use was mostly limited to Lager and rarely used for British-style beers.

Various weird and wonderful single-use stoppers were in use, most of which didn’t hang around for long. One did, however, stand the test of time: the crown cork. In the run up to WW I this was becoming increasingly popular, especially for half pints. 

"He [Mr. Robert D. Clarke] believed that the crown cork would prove to be the cork of the future. It imparted no taste, and being soaked in paraffin it was absolutely clean and satisfactory. He had practically scrapped the whole of his ordinary cork bottles, and was using nothing but crowns and porcelain stoppers."