The Beer Bottle That Looks Like It Should Have A '70s Mustache

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Today's bushy mustache trend is a throwback to a '70s vibe so popular that a beer bottle came out of retirement to star in commercials with famous guys sporting the look. The bottle, called the steinie, was used to launch Miller Lite in 1975. It was 12 ounces, short, stout, and bore an ever so slight resemblance to the silhouette of a '70s football coach with a bad temper. Despite the steinie's Miller Lite ad campaign that is credited with popularizing lite beer, which at the time was a virtual unknown in the industry, the bottle itself had an industry-impacting history long before it became a '70s icon.

The steinie was the little bottle that Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co.hoped would save the day back in the 1930s. The company was in a post-Prohibition scramble to keep up with the new kid on the block – the steel beer can. The beer can (later to become aluminum) was lighter, easier to ship, and more cost-effective compared to the heavier, more fragile long-neck glass beer bottles of the day.  Steinie bottles promised to be a helpful pivot as they were less fragile, their short necks made them easier to ship, and their heavy glass made them reusable, an attractive quality to consumers of the time. Joseph Schlitz Brewing Co. advertised the bottle along with pictures of people swilling beer from old-fashioned German beer steins — the name stuck.

The steinie, also dubbed the stubby, depending on where you are regionally, hung on to its popularity into the 1950s, when beer sold in cans and longneck bottles had recaptured brewing companies' attention and customer popularity — the bottle vs. can debate is still a current discussion among drinkers. By the time Miller Lite gave the steinie its minor comeback in 1975, short-neck beer bottles were still being used sporadically throughout Europe, depending on beer brand and niche, and in Canada, where they became the Canadian standard from 1962 to 1983.

In the 1980s, Miller Lite commercials continued to feature guys with mustaches, but by that time, they held cans, rather than the steinie bottle. In the following year or two, the brief steinie comeback was officially over. Longneck beer bottles had begun to galvanize a reputation among consumers for bringing a sense of sophistication to drinking beer. Just like that, the long-necked beer bottle was officially back in vogue. The steinie's nostalgic pull remains, however, a piece of Americana lore that Coors Banquet dipped into in 2013 by reviving its short bottle for Coors' 150^th anniversary. Miller Lite also gave its steinie one more limited run in 2015. While other bottle sizes are more prominent in culture, those short, stout bottles have a sentimental appeal that, even after all these years, iconic American beer brewers can't seem to quit.