Who invented bottled beer and when?

The origins of the bottle - that is the glass bottle - can be traced back to about 1500 b.C. In fact, if the first evidence of the art of glass-processing is a glass bead dating back to 3500 b.C., the most remote finds of hollow glass recipients (ancestors of the modern bottle), the age of which could be determined with certainty, come from the Pharaoh tombs, under the form of small bottles (balsam containers), small vases and goblets.

These objects were made using a technique called "on friable nucleus", a laborious process that consisted of winding molten glass filaments around a bag filled with sand or wet clay. Balsam containers were mostly produced to hold ointments and cosmetics. These glass working systems continued until the 1st century b.C., when an event of great importance took place in Tiro and Sidone, which revolutionised glass working.

A glassmaker came up with the idea of using a glass tube, inserting the end in a crucible, taking a certain amount of molten glass, and blowing in the pipe. The glass bubble that formed in this way marked the birth of blown glass, which today is still made in the same way. Glass, which was initially used only for luxury objects, that was free blown or blown into moulds made it into a raw material suitable for the production of widely consumed objects. This is how bottles, carafes, flasks and vases of any form and size for any use came about.

With the use of the blowing technique, reduced production times, manufacturing ease, glass soon gained an important position compared to metal and clay objects that had been used till then. Syria, which in the second century, became the world's glass producing centre, exporting its products everywhere. Rome, which at that time was imperial, immediately took advantage of applying the techniques, not only in Italy, but also in all the provinces of the Empire. There was an extensive production of bottles, as witnessed by Martial and Petronius. Confirmation of glass bottles used for pouring and preserving wine came from Pompeii, destroyed in 79.

The Speyer museum in Germany preserves a glass amphora from the II century, full of coagulated wine. The wine, which was sweetened with honey could not evaporate, thanks to the layer of oil used as an insulator. When the oil came into contact with air it hardened until it became a real resin, thus preventing the wine from evaporating. The production of oil, medicine and mostly wine bottles continued up to the V century.

The bottles are moulded into two forms: rectangular or square (travelling bottles) with a flat wide handle attached at right angles on one side, or a cylinder with one or two bent handles like the previous bottles, but narrower.

The history of glass from the VII to the IX century remains a little obscure, and particularly knowledge about hollow glass. With the end of the splendour of Roman glass that came to an end with the middle ages, glass artwork developed in Greece and Turkey, especially in Constantinople, where even the production of hollow glass is original, without however modifying the technique. But, in the meantime, the seafaring power of Venice was becoming increasingly important in Italy.

In 1204 the Crusaders conquered Constantinople and immediately the Venetian government took advantage of this to bring the most skilful Greek and Turkish master glassmakers to the city, thereby guaranteeing Venice the works and art of those master glassmakers. These glassmakers were called "Phiolìeri" because they blew vials, i.e. bottles (Les fiales de vin), as told by chronicler of the era Martino da Canale. This is how the "bucae" came about, i.e. wine and oil bottles, which had to bear a blue ring on the neck and a stamp by the Municipality of Venice. The glass measures and bottles were purchased by the Venetian Republic monopoly, and then sold on the Venetian trading markets, with a sound profit for the Venetian State.

No one could freely sell glass bottles, especially to other municipalities other than those of Venice without a licence granted by the "Giustizieri".

The production of "Inghistere" was important in the Venetian Republic. These were recipients that for many centuries, and in many variants, would continue to be used to design round-bellied, long necked glass bottles, wine and water bottles. Another cradle in Italian glassmaking art of that era was Altare, the production and form being different from the Venetian production. But the glassmaking history of Altare, which was proud of its outstanding glassmaking masters, soon came to an end due to various events.

While in Italy, away from the Venetian Republic, hollow glass had not yet taken on much importance, in Europe this type of production was developing well. The countries with the greatest production and best hollow glass techniques were France, Belgium and Germany. Bottles maintained their spherical shape with a punt at the bottom and long neck.