Dark Brown Stoneware Stout/Porter Bottle

Stoneware stout or porter bottle with wired cork top (the cork would have been secured in the bottle top with a wire wrap and then covered with a lead seal wrapper).

Single tone, vitreous dark brown salt glaze or Bristol glaze (using zinc-oxide feldspathic glaze).

No other diagnostic marks.

In the 1870s, stout, porter, ales and beer were imported into the colony of Queensland from overseas, particularly Britain. Merchants like Rawley & Co. of London, and Richardson's & Co. imported cases, casks or barrels of bottled beer, either pints or quarts, in glass and stone bottles. The bottles were packed in cases, either 6, 12 or 24 to the case, or 10 dozen bottles were packed in a barrel stuffed with straw.

Popular ales sold for 2/- a bottle and included Marrian's No. 3, Tennants', Bass' Pale Ale, Ind Coope's, Allsopp's, Blood's, Jeffres', Trents', Raeburn's, Flower's, Younger's Edinburgh Ale, and Berry & Co.s' Lion Ale from Sheffield.

Stouts included Pig Brand, Boar's Head, Faulconer Morgan's London Ale and A.M. Greer & Co.s' Lane's Stout. E. & J. Burke & Co. of Dublin, owned by the brothers Edward Frederick Burke and John Burke were the bottlers and sole importers of Arthur Guinness, Son & Co.'s stout.