Bottle Green

About Bottle Green Color

The Bottle Green color is a relatively close match to the dark green color that you often see in glass bottles. Since we're trying to approximate a physical object, the color codes on this page may not be exact matches but they're pretty close.

Why are bottles green?

It goes back to beer.

Humans have been drinking beer for thousands of years. As far back as the 16th century glass bottles were used to help keep it fresh, although commercial bottling didn't start until the 17th century.

And while we have other options today, glass is still a great material to keep beer fresh.

A problem came up though. Beer would become "skunky" stored in a glass bottle. Ultraviolet rays in light caused a process that created a chemical almost identical to skunk spray. Brewers use the term "light struck", but skunk smell is skunk smell no matter where it comes from.

Before discovering coatings that they could put on clear glass, brewers were using brown glass to block the UV rays, and it worked really well. Beer stayed fresh longer. Many brewers still use brown glass bottles today.

So, why green?

During World War 2 it was difficult for manufacturers to get brown glass, so they settled on green. It didn't work as well as brown, but it was still better than clear glass.

When brown glass became available some manufacturers decided to stay with green. Green bottles became part of their brand, and in some cases were used to indicate a higher quality beer. Even with coated clear glass or aluminum, some brewers still prefer green bottles.