C. Conrad & Co Budweiser Bottle

GibH · Aug 9, 2019

I learned a bit of beer history. Budweiser was originally introduced by Carl Conrad. He wasn't a brewer, but was a friend of Adolphus Busch. He contracted Busch to make a beer that was modeled after a pilsener that they had tasted while touring Europe. It was made in a place called Budweis. Carl called his beer Budweiser and it was a huge success, but evidently he wasn't a very shrewd business man, because he went bankrupt six years later. Some say it was due to bottling issues (shortages), but this seems unlikely since other makers stayed in business. A more likely explanation was that he expanded too fast, or it may have been a combination of both issues.

His largest creditor was a bottler, and the second largest creditor was Anheuser-Busch.

Anyway, here's a bottle from that long ago era. It would have to date somewhere between 1876-1882 as Carl declared bankruptcy in Jan. 1883.

GibH · Aug 9, 2019

An interesting read on the bottle issue:

Baxter (1998:4) hypothesized that Conrad was forced out of business because of the
bottle shortage in the West. Beer and other bottled products were shipped long distances by
wagon under difficult conditions. Because of this, the empty bottles became an important
commodity. Miles (1986:78) confirmed this shortage during an earlier period, when he noted
that “teamsters could purchase a dozen bottles of liquor in Missouri for four dollars each, drink
the contents along the way, and trade the empty bottles for six dollars worth of produce each inNew Mexico.” Thus, virtually all bottles were reused. It is particularly true of the Southwest
that a proliferation of bottles was directly tied to the arrival of the railroad (see Lockhart 2001
for a more complete discussion of the railroad connection).

For breweries to profit from container sales, it was important that most bottles be
returned. Unfortunately for the original bottler, the bottles were often not returned to the owner
(the brewery) but continued to be refilled by competitors at the point of sale or elsewhere. The
railroads alleviated the problem to some extent, but there were still many remote areas where
bottles continued to be valuable well into the late 1880s or even later. Baxter’s argument that
Conrad may have lost so much money on bottles that he was forced into bankruptcy thus is
plausible. Baxter’s hypothesis, however, fails to explain why other brewers remained in
business under the same circumstances.

PikesPeakCharlie · Aug 9, 2019

Very nice !! Always love a Conrad !! Did ya find in a TS ? We have found and seen others found in Leadville. 4 or 5 of these in different variants sold a few months back on eBay all brought good prices , they were all clean and sparkling .