In the Sincfala museum in Knokke-Heist (Belgium) there is a rebuilt, early 20th century pub, and on the floor we see two cases of beer bottles from Brewery Roels. Brewery Roels brewed its own beer until WW II. After the war, its brewery plundered by the Germans, Brewery Roels bought casks of beer from other brewers, bottled it and sold it to its customers in town. The bottles you see in the picture were the normal style bottle used by all breweries for most of the 20th century. The brewer did his daily tour with cart and horse, later by truck, he delivered along the streets, putting cases of beer on the doorstep of his customers. Much like the milkman who came along the same day. Since every brewer owned a number of pubs, casks were delivered to the pubs.

In the 1950’s we saw the emergence of marketing, mass production of beer, smaller bottles with the “crown-cap”, and the bigger brewers buying the smaller ones. Brewers like Roels, became distributors of bottled beer, brewed by other brewers. Their bottles and cases are now antiques.