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Dec 07, 2024

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Hi, I have just received a couple of old 1/2 gallon beer bottles from my uncle who is a bottle hound. He gave them to me because I homebrew. They are in great shape. My uncle dug them up on a hilltop road, then dirt, in 1965, between San Jose and Half Moon Bay, California. They are screw top, brown glass and you can see the rivets with all the fine details of the bottle just as when it was first made and filled. The brewing company that sold their beer in these bottles was the Globe Brewing Co., San Francisco, California. The bottle has molded in it "permit Calif. u-1116" (on the left side of the logo) and "internal revenue tax paid" on the right side of the logo. The logo is a globe with the word beer across it. What ever became of the Globe Brewing Co. and who owned it? Does it have a value to anyone besides me? I have a pair of these bottles.

From Beer Dave: The Globe Brewery of San Francisco, Calif., operated from 1933-1938. The bottle you described is an embossed "Picnic" bottle. These were sometimes called table beers. The purpose of this bottle was to supply enough beer in one package for the dinner table or a picnic in the park. The breweries that used this bottle filled them with unpastuerized draft beer and they had a short shelf life. The Picnics were developed as a spill proof replacement for growlers or pails. These were some of the early ways that we could enjoy beer at home instead of only at the tavern or brewery. The exact value of the bottle is unknown. I would not however use it for your homebrew, you are dealing with a museum piece here.

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