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Returnable bottles leave beer drinkers cold
Few breweries still use bottles; Yuengling also to end practice
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By Dan Kelly
Reading Eagle
D.G. Yuengling & Son Inc. is likely the last major brewer in the nation to bottle with returnables, but the president of the Pottsville company says there are plans to end that practice soon. Mike Garner, the owner of this distributor, Beer Mart along Morgantown Road, says returnables were once the standard.
The returnable beer bottle looks to be going the way of the dodo.
Already a vanishing vessel for beer - and soda for that matter - the returnable bottle is thought to still be used by only one major U.S. brewer: D.G. Yuengling & Son Inc., Pottsville.
"I think we may be the only regional brewer still using them," Dick L. Yuengling, president and owner, said Monday.
Yuengling said returnable bottles still make great sense ecologically. He said that at one point 60 percent of his business was in returnable bottles.
"Now, if you showed a 16-ounce returnable bottle to a 22-year-old, he wouldn't know what the heck it was," Yuengling joked. "I like the idea. I installed a bottle washer at our new (Pottsville) location. I was going to try to revive the returnables but the customer just doesn't want them anymore."
Yuengling said his 181-year-old brewery - recognized as the nation's oldest - is planning to phase out returnable bottles by the end of the summer, although he was not aware of an exact date.
"But the end of the summer is only few weeks away," he said.
Yuengling said he already has offered to sell some of his returnable bottles to smaller brewers who still use the 16-ounce returnable bottles, which are made of a heavy, brown glass.
Straub Brewery, a smaller 138-year-old family-owned brewery in St. Mary's, Elk County, also still uses returnable bottles but is considering phasing them out.
Dan Straub, great-grandson of the founder of the brewery about 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, said that people simply aren't returning the bottles and he is running out.
Home brewers may also be buying them up or hoarding the bottles for their own use.
Mike Garner, owner of the Beer Mart, 301 Morgantown Road, said he believes returnable bottles are like a lot of things that have vanished from American culture.
Yuengling is the only beer in his large distributorship that still offers the option.
"I always liked the returnable bottle; it created a kind of customer loyalty," Garner said. "I don't think people care anymore.
"The big guys are trying to dismantle small businesses and make everything a Bud or Miller or Coors or Sam's Club - it's all about big business."
Whatever is happening has been happening for years.
The Beer Institute, a trade association that represents 90 percent of all companies that brew or import beer in the U.S., reported that returnable bottles accounted for only 12 percent of all beer sold in the U.S. in 1981.
Today, the institute's annual report lists returnables bottles as 0 percent. Officials said it's actually more like 0.3 percent and falling.
A 2001 study by a Portuguese engineering school found that on average, a returnable bottle was cycled through the cleaning and refilling process six times a year.
The more the returnable bottle is used, the less it impacts the environment, compared with nonreturnable bottles.
For Garner it's the end of an era.
"For many years this was the place to come for returnables," Garner said. "Yuengling is the only one available anymore."
Few breweries still use bottles; Yuengling also to end practice
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Dan Kelly
Reading Eagle
D.G. Yuengling & Son Inc. is likely the last major brewer in the nation to bottle with returnables, but the president of the Pottsville company says there are plans to end that practice soon. Mike Garner, the owner of this distributor, Beer Mart along Morgantown Road, says returnables were once the standard.
The returnable beer bottle looks to be going the way of the dodo.
Already a vanishing vessel for beer - and soda for that matter - the returnable bottle is thought to still be used by only one major U.S. brewer: D.G. Yuengling & Son Inc., Pottsville.
"I think we may be the only regional brewer still using them," Dick L. Yuengling, president and owner, said Monday.
Yuengling said returnable bottles still make great sense ecologically. He said that at one point 60 percent of his business was in returnable bottles.
"Now, if you showed a 16-ounce returnable bottle to a 22-year-old, he wouldn't know what the heck it was," Yuengling joked. "I like the idea. I installed a bottle washer at our new (Pottsville) location. I was going to try to revive the returnables but the customer just doesn't want them anymore."
Yuengling said his 181-year-old brewery - recognized as the nation's oldest - is planning to phase out returnable bottles by the end of the summer, although he was not aware of an exact date.
"But the end of the summer is only few weeks away," he said.
Yuengling said he already has offered to sell some of his returnable bottles to smaller brewers who still use the 16-ounce returnable bottles, which are made of a heavy, brown glass.
Straub Brewery, a smaller 138-year-old family-owned brewery in St. Mary's, Elk County, also still uses returnable bottles but is considering phasing them out.
Dan Straub, great-grandson of the founder of the brewery about 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, said that people simply aren't returning the bottles and he is running out.
Home brewers may also be buying them up or hoarding the bottles for their own use.
Mike Garner, owner of the Beer Mart, 301 Morgantown Road, said he believes returnable bottles are like a lot of things that have vanished from American culture.
Yuengling is the only beer in his large distributorship that still offers the option.
"I always liked the returnable bottle; it created a kind of customer loyalty," Garner said. "I don't think people care anymore.
"The big guys are trying to dismantle small businesses and make everything a Bud or Miller or Coors or Sam's Club - it's all about big business."
Whatever is happening has been happening for years.
The Beer Institute, a trade association that represents 90 percent of all companies that brew or import beer in the U.S., reported that returnable bottles accounted for only 12 percent of all beer sold in the U.S. in 1981.
Today, the institute's annual report lists returnables bottles as 0 percent. Officials said it's actually more like 0.3 percent and falling.
A 2001 study by a Portuguese engineering school found that on average, a returnable bottle was cycled through the cleaning and refilling process six times a year.
The more the returnable bottle is used, the less it impacts the environment, compared with nonreturnable bottles.
For Garner it's the end of an era.
"For many years this was the place to come for returnables," Garner said. "Yuengling is the only one available anymore."