Pickaxe Bottles

[Trough Lolly]

Some well to do friends of mine enjoy drinking Grolsch - and regularly buy dozens of swingtops of the stuff - I do like it myself!

Anyway I keenly asked where all the empties were and they casually advised that they just toss them out!

Cheers,
TL

[Oliver]

Hi chaps,

Just to answer the original query:

was Pickaxe a bottle brand, or a beer? Coopers used them (I did use the search function on them) - so the bottles I use might have been sold directly, or as Coopers and the label fell off?

Pickaxe was a brand of bottle made by the South Australian Bottle Co-operative. The SA breweries - Coopers, West End and Southwark (and possibly others in earlier time) - all bottled in Pickaxe bottles. When the beer was consumed the idea was that they'd be returned, cleaned, distributed back to the breweries and refilled. A current-day equivalent of this concept is the Chep pallet. Of course, not all bottles made it back, but a large proportion did, although the proportion being returned diminished as beers began being sold in other states.

I think that South Australia was the last state to stop using this system of returnable and reusable bottles, and it ended in the early 2000s. Coopers dropped it first, followed by SA brewing (West End and Southwark).

I've still got some Coopers Stout and Sparkling Ale in Pickaxe bottles, from around 1997-98, which I bought when I realised Coopers was moving to non-refillable bottles. I must drink them one day!

All of my homebrew bottles are Pickaxe bottles, and most still have the original labels, including some Coopers bottles that attracted a "4c refund at marine dealers in SA"!

Why are some marked as property of NSW and others property of SA?

Pickaxe was the South Australian bottle. Each state had its own variation. There was a NSW bottle co-operative, a Victorian Bottle Company (usually with CUB on the neck where the pickaxe logo is on the Pickaxe bottles) and the XXXX bottles in Queensland (which were dropped in the late '90s so were the second-last to survive after South Australia's) had the man with the XXXX hat on them.

I've been threatening for years to post some pics of Pickaxe and other bottles, which I'll do ... some time.

Cheers,

Oliver

[Oliver]

As promised, I recently did a long post about Pickaxe and other returnable bottles that contains a lot more information than is in this post, along with a heap of pictures.

Oliver

[Pogierob]

Not pick axe but a score worth being bloody happy about. Just gave my neighbours a bottle of homebrew and he asked if I wanted some bottles.
How many do you want?
How many do you have?
About 60.

[CrookedFingers]

Nice !

[Pogierob]

Anyone?

[Pogierob]

1953 Similar style to today’s long necks with rounded bottom in amber and clear dates on base between 1953-55 PX on base for the next years after.



That's the best I can find

[Oliver]

Never seen such a Pickaxe bottle. Are you saying it has the Pickaxe logo on the neck or the side of the base? Or no Pickaxe?

Cheers,

Oliver

[Oliver]

I love Google. I searched for bottle px and came up with this page on the Adelaide Bottle Co-operative, which made Pickaxe bottles: http://www.thebottledepot.com/bottleco.htm

Part of the page reads:

1953 Similar style to today’s long necks with rounded bottom in amber and clear dates on base between 1953-55 PX on base for the next years after.

[Pogierob]

Has pick axe on neck and has
This bottle is the property if the Adelaide bottle co-operative
Company limited southwark

[Pogierob]

dad gave me a few crates of old bottles and some of them are like this. he told me he collected some of the bottles in the desert, you can see the aged sandblasting on them

[Oliver]

I am jealous. But the little lady is very glad that your dad didn't give them to me because she's sick of my Pickaxe bottle collection and me finding random examples of the brand in sand dunes while on holiday!

[Tipsy]

This bottle is the property if the Adelaide bottle co-operative

You better get it back to them quick smart

[Pogierob]

They stopped Co-operating so until they start again, I'm going to hold on to them.

[CrookedFingers]

Boom tssshhh.

[Pogierob]

I'm not a sentimental bloke Oliver.
I have four of these bottles so I can spare one for a collector
Make me an offer I can't refuse.

Rules.
No money allowed
Offer must be liquid.
Gravity must be above 1.000
The recipe is required as part of the deal.
Can't be something I have brewed with you.
Ok just to be clear, needs to be beer.
You must be proud of it.
No ginger allowed.


Deal?

[Oliver]

Deal. Will PM.

[Pogierob]

Found some bottles in a creek bank.

[Oliver]

Hi Rob,

I was up Mildura (Vic) way a month or so ago and picked up a bit of a collection, including a Courage bottle, which I'd never seen before.

I'll post soon ...

Cheers,

Oliver

[Guru]

You forgot to call in and say hi Oliver!