Grolsch Beer Bottle Questions

Factual Questions
1

TL;DR
Does anyone know when the Grolsch Brewery in Holland started exporting their beer to the US in green flip-top bottles (instead of amber flip-top)? Did they change the flip-top from ceramic to plastic at the same time?

OK, this is going to be pretty obscure and could belong in MPSIMS, but I am looking for some factual answers and the depth of knowledge here may just be able to produce them

As many know, Grolsch Brewery in Holland used unique bottles for decades. An example here and here. I use the past tense because I am not sure they still use the swing-top design. Before the crown cap was invented, the swing top design was used throughout Europe (western Europe, anyway, from my digging around on this). They may still sell them, but I know they sell their beer in crown-capped bottles, too.

Anyway, when I was in College (late 70’s early 80’s), I could buy them. They were expensive for a college kid, but I’d buy one or four occasionally for a treat. Anyway, back then, the bottles were amber and the flip-tops were ceramic.

A decade or so later, I began brewing my own beer. These the swing-top bottles are valued by homebrewers because you can seal them faster and don’t need a capper. Well, by the early 1990’s, Grolsch had switched to the green bottle and a plastic flip-tops for their Premium Lager but still sold their Amber in, well, amber bottles. The plastic top is really irrelevant as far as re-using the bottles is concerned, but the green bottle is viewed as inferior. The reason is that the brown or amber bottles block more of the harmful light that can affect the flavor of the beer. Not a problem if you keep the bottled beer away from light, but if exposed to sunlight (or even fluorescent light), a beer in an amber bottle will fare better than one in a green bottle.

OK, we’re almost there… A relative of mine just gave me his collection of flip-top bottles (he used to brew, but has not brewed in years and was moving, so I got lucky). Probably about 100 or so. The majority of them are Grolsch bottles, some of them are amber but most of them are green.

So, my question is, does anyone know when Grolsch started using the green bottles? Did that coincide with their using ceramic tops?

I just am curious about these bottles and wonder about such things. As I am going to fill them with my own beer, I am going to remove the tops (to make cleaning and sanitizing them easier), and I wonder if I should spend much effort in making sure the right tops go on the right bottles.

THanks,

2

Hmm, I dunno. However, I do know other companies use them, besides Grolsch.

3

They were using the green ones by the mid-1980s at least.

4

You could try finding an e-mail address for Grolsch and asking them. It might be the day their public relations person has nothing better to do, and you’d get an answer right from the source.

5

Yes, that’s true, other breweries offer beers in swing-top bottles. But, only the Grolsch bottles have “Grolsch” written in script letters on the top. The bottles also have a unique shape with logo incorporating the letters “G” and “B” (perhaps for Grolsch Brewery") embossed in the glass.

And, yes, my collection also includes bottles from these other sources. Right now, however, I am limiting my curiosity to the Grolsch bottles. It isn’t that I have no interest in those others, but the vast majority of bottles in the collection are Grolsch (and most of them are green).

One thing that seems apparent is that all of the brown Grolsch bottles have ceramic tops, and most of the green ones have plastic tops. I have found a few green ones with ceramic tops and I am curious if they came that way from the brewery or perhaps the tops had been swapped out at some time.

6

That’s a good idea. I’ll try that and let you know what I find out.

7

Grolsch bottles in Britain mostly seem to be swing Flip Tops, but in 2012 they were supposed to change to boring bottle caps in order to conform, and lose distinctiveness. Prolly market experts.

Says it was to save steel, But why not go the whole hog and sell beer in unlabelled Swedish TetraPaks ?

I don’t drink beer, but I always thought them pretty.

8

Bit earlier. I met my wife in 1980, married in 1983, first beer somewhere in the middle. Grolsch had the swing-top green bottles then.

9

I still have a Grolsch bottle I bought in California for a special occasion in 1987. It is a green bottle with a ceramic (not plastic) top. The top was definitely never replaced.

10

This is great! Can you examine the bottle for me?

What I am looking for is a date mark embossed in the glass. It would be at the bottom, where the side meets the bottom. If my thinking is correct, it would be two digits (probably 86 or 87), lying on their sides, with a short line beneath. Like this:

8
6

Except the numerals would be on their side.
The line would be so you can tell it’s a 86, not a 98

In looking through my collection, I find most of the green bottles have a 92 or 93 on them (not on their sides, just normal orientation). I believe all of these have plastic tops. I have a few with a 91, and these have ceramic top. It would look as if the change to plastic tops occurred in 1991-1992. (incidentally, I have since spoken to my relative and he said a lot of the bottles would have come from the 1992-1994 timeframe, if he remembered correctly).

Now, some of the brown bottles I have have the underlined two-digit on-their-side marking. They are all “89”. The problem is that I have one that only has a single digit on it, a “6” with two dots under it. All of these have ceramic tops.

Thanks, again.

11

Here’s what I see, on the side of the bottle near the bottom:


**
· 23 : \///\ 87 ·
**

All characters are upright as I’ve transcribed them. There are centered dots at the start and end, and the thing I’ve transcribed as a colon has the two dots spaced quite far apart, with the bottom dot level with the bottom of the numbers and the top dot somewhat above the top of the numbers. The five slashes (first and last leaning left, middle three leaning right) are slightly wavy but that might just be an artifact of the glass manufacturing process. There are no dots or lines under the digits.

On the opposite side of the bottle, 180 degrees away from these markings, there is a horizontal row of three dots, then a large space, then two more dots, with the last two dots spaced somewhat farther apart than the first three.

12

That’s great markn+. I had a strong suspicion those two digit numbers were the date the bottle was made. I’ve seen that a lot on European bottles. While this bit isn’t conclusive proof, this along with what my relative told me does make it rather likely.

So, it looks like the green bottles were introduced in 1981-1982 time period.
I still don’t know about the ceramic tops. They were definitely used in 1987. I have three green bottles with ceramic tops with a 1991 date, so it would seem that they may have changed the tops in the 1991-1992 period.

13

Early 1980’s I remember green (not brown) Grolsch bottles in northern California. Same thing, collected for home brewing.

14

Is this the bottle you are referring to?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/2-Amber-Grolsch-Lager-Beer-Bottles-With-Porcelain-Flip-Top-Lid-/401355287258

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-BROWN-GLASS-GROLSCH-LAGER-BEER-BOTTLE-PORCELAIN-FLIP-TOP-SWING-/112487902735
https://www.google.com/search?q=grolsch+bottles+brown&oq=grolsch+bottles%2C+bro&gs_l=psy-ab.1.0.0i22i30k1l2.268666.273731.0.276270.7.6.1.0.0.0.380.1279.0j3j2j1.6.0.foo%2Cewh%3D0%2Cnso-enksa%3D0%2Cnso-enfk%3D0...0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.7.1286...0j0i22i10i30k1j33i160k1.HtbdYaQvnVU

15

Short summary from a source not everyone might find credible. :wink: (Dutch wiki):

They started producing the flip-tops in 1897. The bottle got its current round shape in 1963. Grolsch stopped production of the Amber bottle in the Netherlands in 2008. The green bottles were already available for export, as you know. They replaced the porcelain caps because of environmental reasons and cost price.

The code on the bottom is the production date, as you guessed.

Grolsch was the first brewery in the Netherlands to introduce their own bottle design to replace the standard recyclable bottles in 2007.

Grolsch is one of my least favorite beers so I never paid too much attention to changes.

And to answer your question (Grolsch website):

The green bottle was introduced in 1972 as an export bottle. It stood out among all the brown/amber beer bottles that everyone else was using. Before that time they exported their beer in small quantities but that year they really went international.

16

hoping that there could be some more information about bottle ages etc, i have one that has the horizontal 89, 16 on oppisite side, also one that has a horizontal 2 and a vertical 2 , lot more dots then the other one, just looking for places to go for information. my google searches are going no where