Dark bottles vs Clear bottles?

Question

Why are some beers in clear bottles{ Miller High Life} and some beer in dark brown bottles {Miller Lite}?

Answer 1

Dark bottles help keep sunlight from giving beer that "skunk" taste.

Answer 2

There are clear, brown, green (and some blue bottles).

Marketers LOVE green bottles, brewers don't, but marketers often control the purse strings.

The alpha acids (the bit from the hops that makes beer bitter) are badly affected by light and change their structure so that the beer tastes like Heineken. It's called light strike.

Green bottles don't filter out this light, but brown bottles do (at least they are much better at it).

Fortunately (depending on how you look at it) some of the bigger brewers use hop extracts. These have been "altered" so that they won't degrade to he compounds that cause lightstrike. This means that it no longer matters what colour bottle.

I don't know much about US mainstream beers, but it may be that Miller Lite uses real hops and High LIfe uses extract.

Either way, according to marketers, beer in green bottles looks better and carries a premium "look". Brown bottles are just better for the beer.

Answer 3

Dark bottles keep out the light. But Miller High Life wouldn't be Miller High Life if it were in a dark bottle.

I Cr 13;8a

Answer 4

It actually depends how the beer is brewed and its shelf life. As Beers are sensitive to Light/ Sun rays most brewers prefer to bottle beer in dark bottles either brown or green in color to protect the liquid for heat and sun rays/ light

Answer 5

An advertising ploy?!