Why your choice of beer bottle is usually either green or brown

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Beer has been brewed pretty much since forever, but it was only during the 19th century that it began to be bottled and sold in glass.

Clear glass was commonly used, but it was found that exposure to sunlight tended to alter its taste, to the extent that the beer started to taste and smell ‘skunky’ - not exactly something you want to drink after a long day at the steel mill.

Brewers then started bottling beers in brown glass, which is much more effective at filtering out UV rays and avoiding the skunk taste problem.

During the Second World War, the cost of producing brown glass rose dramatically, it is thought because of the increased demand for ingredients such as sulfur in the military and medical industries. As a result, many companies switched to making green glass. While not quite as effective at filtering UV rays as brown, green glass still gets the job done.

UV protection can now be applied to clear glass, but traditions die hard. Brown bottles remain the most common, but green bottles have become somewhat of a status symbol and denote a premium beer product.

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