Stone Ginger Beer Bottle Types

Earlier ginger beers, up until about 1880 were salt glazed and incised (or impressed) normally just with the ginger beer brewer's name and town or village.  Some very early examples were slab sealed.  The colours varied but were basically either white or creamy white, or any shade of brown:

The closure on these bottles were cork for the vast majority of the period, but towards 1880, internal screw ginger beers started to be produced.

Around 1880 bottle production had improved and we start to see the introduction of two-tone glazed transfer printed ginger beers.

Different closures on the bottle started to be invented.  See the internal screw, Galtee More and Cork closures on these below.  Galtee More bottles included a hole in the lip so that a pin could keep the cork in place.

Other colour tops started to be produced on ginger beers.  Unfortunately in Berkshire this was only 3 types and these were all blue.  But many other colours existed throughout the UK like green and even pink!

Other closures to the bottles included crown caps and swing (or bale) stoppers.  Also some bottles were started to be produced as "champagne" type style or even "skittle" shaped bottles.  Below is an example of the crown cap type and champagne style.

Royal Doulton started to produce machine printed transfers rather than the traditional rubber stamped ones.  See below for a comparison of the quality difference.

Eventually the stone ginger beer bottle got replaced by glass bottles later in the 1930's.