Beer Prices Rise Due To Brown Bottle Shortage

It’s becoming increasingly apparent that the price of your beer will be going up in 2022, whether you’re drinking it from a bottle or an aluminum can. In addition to rising gas prices, which has made shipping cost soar and spiraling commodity costs, comes word of new brown bottle shortages.

Bottled beer became popular around the 19th century because brewers thought it was the best material for keeping beer fresher longer. But brewers soon learned that the use of clear glass bottles weren’t ideal for beer. Beer left in the sun would turn “skunky” and quickly smell and taste offensive.

As most of us now know, UV rays permeate beer and give it that skunky taste. To solve this problem, beer producers began using brown beer bottles to shield their beer from the sun’s rays, a trend that even in light of the growing popularity of aluminum cans in the beer biz, remains today.

The impact of the coronavirus led to bar, taproom and restaurant shutdowns in the US, effectively putting the brakes on kegged beer and sending canned beer sales through the roof, as consumers stocked their pantries to wait out the pandemic.

Almost overnight kegged beer destined for restaurants and bars was diverted to cans for consumers now sheltering-in-place and brewery can supplies were decimated by the unexpected transition.

As we’ve reported aluminum can shortages led those breweries that could to transition back to bottles, but now it appears that there’s a looming brown botte crisis destined to raise the cost of your beer in 2022.

On January 6, Constellation Brands, which brews and distributes Mexican beer brands like Corona and Modelo in the US, held a conference call to discuss its third quarter results. And Chief Financial Officer Garth Hankinson said that the company expects to hike beer prices more than its typical 1% to 2% this coming year due to rising commodity costs and a shortage of brown glass.

“We are diligently working to address the brown glass shortage that is acting as a headwind,” Chief Executive Officer Bill Newlands added.

As Bloomberg reported “Constellation also cited higher freight and warehousing costs among supply-chain changes brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.”

And all those costs are going to be passed on to you.

Welcome to 2022.

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