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Why do breweries use green bottles?


One of the things I don't really understand about the beer world is why so many beers use green bottles. When beer is exposed to ultraviolet light for a certain period of time, certain molecules (basically the stuff contributed by hops) start to break down and cause bad flavors. This is what's called "light-struck" beer, but it's more commonly known as "skunked" beer. Brown bottles provide a large degree of protection, but apparently don't make the beer invulnerable (unless you've got your brown bottle baking in the sun for a long time, you should be ok). However, green and clear bottles provide nearly no protection from UV rays, and thus those beers can get skunked rather easily. Incidentally, cans? They actually provide the best protection, which is one of the reasons you see so much talk of craft beer in cans these days.

This begs the question: If light is so bad for beer and if green and clear bottles don't provide any protection, why do breweries use green or clear bottles? Sure, some of the crappy imports do, but even really good beers use green bottles. A while ago, I got drunk and sent out a series of pedantic (but polite!) emails to a bunch of my favorite breweries that nevertheless use green bottles. I asked why they used the green bottles and if it had anything to do with cost, tradition, or marketing. I didn't get a response from Dupont, but Yuengling was very responsive and provided a very forthright and honest explanation:

Thanks for your recent inquiry regarding our usage of green glass.

We make 7 year round beer brands and 1 seasonal Bock Beer. Currently, 2 are offered in green glass.....Lager and Lord Chesterfield Ale. The others are in a standard brown.

Your questions are great...let me address a few as I go. First, green is definitely not less expensive. It's actually harder to source in the quantities we need.

Originally, when Dick Yuengling reintroduced Lager in 1987, he placed it in brown glass and had a very different label designed than what we know today. In the early 1990s he decided to redesign the packaging entirely.....he knew he had a great beer that was different than other full calorie beers on the market at the time. But the brown glass and original label just didn't make it look "special". It looked like every other beer on the market. There was no point of difference.

When the label was redesigned to what we know today, Dick also considered a change to green glass. First, no other domestic brand was in green. Miller High Life was in clear. So was MGD back then. But the "special" beers of that time were mainly imports. Becks, St Pauli, Lowenbrau, etc. All green glass.

So the shift to green was a marketing shift.....a point of difference for this special beer.

You are is less protective of the product than brown. We have been working closely with our glass supplier who has developed a UV coating to apply to the outside of the bottle. This is in early stages of development. We are also considering a "high wall" six pack carrier to protect the bottles on the shelf. But there are also other packaging considerations to sort through. But the bottom line is that it's always a concern to protect the integrity of our products. Luckily, our Lager turns very quickly on the shelf so we rarely get complaints about this product. We do sometimes get off taste feedback on chesterfield ale, which we make good to our customers on a case by case basis.

With all that said, cans are actually the best vessel for packaged beer. Very many craft breweries are figuring that out now. Luckily nearly all of our brands are available in cans.

Thanks again for the email and for your support of our brewery!

Ah Marketing! The Alehead's worst enemy. It is funny because I've always noticed that I enjoy Lager the most out of the can or on tap, but until I started getting all beer nerdy, I never really put two and two together. Also, it's rather heartening to see that they're researching UV coatings for their beer, though I'm guessing it will be a while before that happens (and honestly, at this point, switching to brown bottles would probably be fine).

I'm still a little baffled when I see beers from Dupont or Fantôme in big green bottles though (even more confusing - Dupont sells smaller bottles of Saison Dupont that come in capped brown bottles!) During Philly Beer Week a while back, I asked an importer why so many good beers use green glass. He said he didn't know, but he always assumed it was tradition. I would bet marketing probably has more to do with it (especially given Yuengling's response), but I'll still be forever confused as to why a brewery with the reputation of Mikkeller would use green bottles for something (seriously, I just bought a bottle of Mikkeller barleywine, and it came in a green bottle).

Yuengling Bock

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I've long professed my love for Yuengling Lager. It's not a face-melting beer by any stretch of the imagination, but it's solid and dependable and locally ubiquitous. Over the year's I've tried most of their other beers - the porter, the black and tan, the premium lager, and various light varieties - but none of those really stick out. Then I see this new beer with a fancy vintage label design that I don't recognize. Yuengling makes a Bock? And it's a seasonal release? Wow, I had no idea.

Apparently this seasonal beer was once a staple release, but it hasn't been brewed for nearly 40 years. To celebrate Yuengling's 180th anniversary, they did a limited, keg-only release that was so popular that they decided to make it a regular thing. Since I was in the market for some non-face-melting beer to drink during my Lenten coke fasting, immediately picked up a sixer of this.

Yuengling Bock Beer

Isn't that label awesome? It's apparently based on artwork from the 1941 release. I love the Billy Goat, apparently a staple of Bock style labels (I'm sure I'll cover that convention at some other time). It pours a clear, dark brown color with a reddish tint and a small, tan head. As you'd expect, it smells malty, but not particularly fruity or sweet. The taste is not especially powerful, but there's some malty sweetness there, perhaps a tiny bit of roastiness, and it finishes a bit dry (though it's not really bitter). It's not dissimilar to a Scotch ale, though this isn't quite as impressive as the Scotch ales I've had lately. Mouthfeel is a bit on the thin side. It's very easy to drink and not disagreeable, but it's not particularly special either. A nice change of pace, but nothing that will unseat the mighty Lager. C+

Beer Nerd Details: 5.1% ABV bottled (12 oz). Drank from a tulip glass.

I suspect this is exactly what Yuengling was going for though, and I certainly wasn't expecting anything overly special, but it would be interesting to see what Yuengling could accomplish if they put their resources behind a more unique and powerful beer. I don't really expect that anytime soon though. Yuengling isn't a craft brewery, after all. But they're certainly better than other macros!

Yuengling Traditional Lager


In Pennsylvania, if you want a Yuengling, all you need to do is ask for a "lager". This seems to amuse outsiders quite a bit, but for us, it's just normal. Yuengling is pretty much my default beer. It's available everywhere, it's dirt cheap, and it actually tastes good (a thousand times better than macro beers like Bud, Miller, etc...). I've drank so many of these that I don't know that I can really write a review, as its taste is pretty much hardwired into me. I take a sip, the muscle memory kicks in, and I grin. Does it knock my socks off like something out of a Trappist brewery? Well, no. But I can drink 6 of these without having to take out another mortgage. And I can actually find them in a bar. (I'll give it a B.)

Yuengling Poster

Once you leave PA, it doesn't seem anywhere near as ubiquitous, though everyone seems to enjoy it. Friends at school would often load up their cars on the way home, not just so they had their own secret stash, but because their pops wanted some too. (Of course, when the default beer at college is Natural Light, Yuengling actually does seem like some sort of Trappist rarity, but I digress.) There's something about the Yuengling brand that's just endearing. Perhaps it's the storied history - it is America's oldest continuously running brewery, after all. Or maybe it's just local pride. Whatever the case, it seems to strike a chord with people around here. Would it continue to do so if the brewery expanded their distribution?

A few years ago, Yuengling expanded their operation to Florida, effectively covering the entire east coast. I remember seeing it on tap in Florida once and being shocked (alas, they didn't quite have the "lager" lingo down, earning me a confused look from the bartender). I assume west coasters have never even heard of it. Well that will probably be changing soon:

Now, the fifth-generation brewing scion and sole owner is poised to make his riskiest move yet to expand the nation's oldest beer maker. Yuengling (pronounced ying-ling) announced last week that it signed a letter of intent to buy a former Coors brewery in Memphis, Tenn. The facility would be the Pennsylvania brewer's largest and could more than double the company's overall capacity and allow it to expand distribution into multiple states beyond its 13-state footprint in the Eastern U.S.
Will it make it all the way to the west coast? I wouldn't be surprised either way. The company is apparently quite conservative when it comes to expanding (which makes sense, considering their longstanding history), so maybe this will just be a mid-west thing. I'd be curious to see how west coasters like this beer though. The storied reputation in this area and limited distribution elsewhere could end up being its downfall if expectations get too high. In any case, if you've never heard of it and you start seeing it popping up, give it a shot. It's not liquid crack or a transcendent experience or anything, but it is a great session beer. (thanks to Jay for the link)

Update: Funnily enough, the beer nerds at BeerAdvocate call this an "American Amber / Red Lager". I just labeled it as a "lager" without even thinking. Heh. I was also expecting the judgement of the beer nerds to be a bit harsher, but a "B-" is probably about as good as I could ever hope for here.


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Hi, my name is Mark, and I like beer.


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