If during your first digs you come across a Salt Glazed Ginger Beer bottle, as well as being very pleased, I have no doubt that you will be surprised at the condition of an item that has been, or could have been underground for over 125 years. After a careful wash the ginger would still hold water and would still look as good as it did when first produced. Glazed containers have been in use for many hundreds of years and it made sense for the Ginger Beer (GB) producers to carry on using a tried and tested method. I had to wait a very long time before digging my first (GB), I found plenty of other salt glazed containers namely Inks, Blacking pots and open topped containers, but very rarely a (GB).
At a time when most people drank a mild beer rather than take a risk and drink water, the introduction of GB must have been a relief. Vendors started selling GB in the streets, using mobile fountains, these were horse drawn, but it wasn’t long before GB became available in a bottle so that it could be taken home, stored and consumed at your leisure. You will find that initially the bottles were a standard salt glazed bottle, some of them being impressed with the makers trade mark and name. As the years rolled on manufacturers tried to make the containers more attractive and appealing to try and attract more custom and of course to try and prevent other traders from using the bottle. Eventually the GB`s were made even more attractive by the introduction of coloured glazing and also transfer printing, some of these designs making the items highly collectable.
Let us try and cover some of the types of GB`s you may come across, firstly the Standard shape and secondly the Champagne shape. These two types can then be separated into Corked, Screw topped, Salt Glazed, Impressed and also Transfer Printed. Later on in the evolution of the Ginger Beer you will encounter Crown Topped and lots of other subtle variations.
The standard shape or what I call the Blob Top, started with a cork, this was secured into place using wire tied under the underside of the Blob, and over the top of the cork. The Ginger beer liquid was gaseous and if the cork was not secured, it would pop out, with the pressure generated by the gas. The slat glazed container also meant that the contents could not be viewed until it came to the point of consumption, much later on the manufacturers began to produce a much higher quality drink which meant that they could use glass containers.
Some Blob Tops have a pair of holes in the sides of the Blob, this could be the remains of the Lightning Stopper or Swing Stopper which was patented in the States in about 1875, this is another top that is still in use today. If you are really lucky you may find a blob top with a single hole through the blob, this was a pin hole, to secure the cork in place using a pin rather than a wire champagne like cage, this pinned bottle was called a Galtee More.
The Cork stoppered Blob Tops were steadily replaced with the Internal Screw top, I assume for ease of manufacture the blob top remained. The Screw Top was either threaded wood, ceramic, something called Vulcanite and or Hard Rubber. (Some with Red rubber washers)
The Crown Top enclosure which most of us are familiar with nowadays, was also patented in the States in 1892 by a William Painter, surprisingly the Crown Top was not generally accepted in England until the 1920`s. Although not always the case this is a pretty good start date for all Crown Tops.
I know this has been a very brief introduction to GB`s, I am no expert, you will I feel sure at some time find a Ginger Beer at a car boot, bottle fayre or you may even dig one up. You will have found something that has survived many years and treasure it, and I feel sure that those of you that need further information will find plenty of it on the net.
I hope that you will find the pictures supplied informative.
Happy hunting.