On this day in 1568, the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, Dr. Alexander Nowell, accidentally discovered bottled beer. Alexander poured some beer into a bottle for a fishing trip, lost the bottle in the grass, stumbled upon it again a few days later, and found it was still good to drink! Because glass was weaker, bottles back then were very round and corked as to alleviate pressure build-up and explosion!
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There is no known date for Nowell and the beer bottle incident. And being corked won’t “alleviate pressure build-up” in a bottle – it will do exactly the opposite, that is, allow pressure to rise.
We searched several sites for more accurate information about the date. Eventually the cork will still cause pressure build up, most bottle created in that time period are rounded at the base versus the classic wine bottle shape. This helped reduce explosive incidents, but it would not eliminate the risk, just alleviate it. We don’t know if the bottle exploded in two hours or two days. Thus is the nature of story telling… Time stretches and shrinks. Hope that enjoy our other factoids as we’ve visited your site many times, too!