Toledo, Ohio is known as the Glass City. Reminders of this can be found everywhere around town. You can watch the University of Toledo Rockets play football in the Glass Bowl, open a bank account at the Glass City Federal Credit Union, run in the Glass City Marathon, or go to Sunday morning worship at the the Glass City Church. You can even attend the Glass City Beer Fest every spring.

Since the late 19th century glass has been integral to Toledo’s identity and the city has been, and continues to be, a center of innovation with respect to both glass design and production. Toledo (or rather its suburban neighbor Perrysburg) is home to the world headquarters of Owens-Illinois (O-I), the world’s largest manufacturer of glass containers. The company (or its affiliate and licensees) makes one out of every two glass containers produced worldwide. O-I was founded in Toledo in 1903 as Owens Bottle Machine Company. In 1929 it merged with the Illinois Glass Company to form Owens-Illinois. Company founder, Michael J. Owens, invented the automatic bottle-making machine in 1903. It revolutionized the manufacture of glass bottles. In 1913 the National Child Labor Committee of New York City credited this invention with effectively eliminating the need for child labor in glass factories. The history of glass industry in Toledo is chronicled in a highly readable and informative new book titled The Glass City: Toledo and the Industry that Built It (University of Michigan Press 2015) by my colleague Barbara Floyd. Barbara is the University Archivist and Director of the Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections at The University of Toledo.

Toledo was also the birthplace of the Studio Glass Movement which was founded when Harvey Littleton and Dominick Labino held their now famous and historic glass blowing workshops at the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA) in March and June of 1962. In 2006, just across the street from the main museum, the TMA constructed The Glass Pavilion to house over 5,000 pieces of glass from ancient to modern times. The Pavilion, designed by Tokyo’s SANAA Ltd., has won a number of awards for its innovative architecture. The TMA was founded in 1901 by Edward Drummond Libbey. Libbey  had opened the Libbey Glass Company in Toledo in 1888. Today Libbey is the world’s second largest manufacturer of glass tableware products.

Not surprisingly Toledo has also been influential in the world of automotive glass. In 1971 Toledo physicist and entrepreneur, Harold McMaster founded Glasstech. At one point Glasstech manufactured 80% of the world’s automotive glass. In 1984 McMaster, whom Fortune Magazine once called The Glass Genius, founded Glasstech Solar. Glasstech Solar later  became First Solar. Today First Solar is one of world’s leading manufacturers of thin film solar panels, some of which are made in its Toledo (or more specifically Perrysburg) facility.

But back to Owens-Illinois. In 2013 O-I unveiled its new $35 million, 24,000 square feet, glass innovation center on its Perrysburg campus. The innovation center houses two production lines. One is dedicated to producing innovative samples for customers while the other is used to optimize production processes and test new products. This is where much of the American brewing industry comes when it needs a new bottle design.

In 2014 MillerCoors turned to O-I to produce a glass for its new Miller Fortune beer. The brewer wanted to project a premium image for its new beer. They were seeking a look that was both sleek and unique. In working together O-I and MillerCoors focused on the bottle’s color, with the end result being a black bottle. Beer in brown, green, and clear glass bottles are common. Black is different. And the glass that is used to make bottles is genuinely black. Break it and you will see that the glass is black all the way through, unlike other ‘black’ bottles that are clear and receive a black treatment. The process that O-I use to make their black glass is proprietary. In 2010 the Fortune bottle was recognized for its innovation, design, and shelf appeal when design received the Glass Packaging Institute’s Clear Choice Award.  O-I’s black glass is in demand to project a premium image in other alcoholic drink sectors, including Scotch whisky and gin.

O-I were also responsible for designing MillerCoors’ vortex bottle. The bottle, used for Miller Lite beer, has specially designed grooves inside the neck of the bottle. While there have been claims that the grooves improve the the taste of the beer this is highly unlikely.  Others have claimed that the vortex design makes the beer easier to chug. In reality the new design may be  purely aesthetic and it is designed to increase awareness of and to get people to talk about and drink the beer. It seemed to work as sales of Miller Lite increased by 6% following the introduction of the vortex bottle. The vortex bottle was manufactured using O-I’s proprietary internal embossing technology. One commentator describes this as “the best new invention for the beer industry since the twist-off cap”. Others clearly agree with this assessment. In 2010 the Glass Packaging Institute awarded O-I its Clear Choice Award Winner for the vortex design. The Institute described the vortex bottle as a “stunning example of O-I innovation”. More cynical observers have called it a gimmick.

With the proliferation of craft breweries in recent years it can be a challenge for craft brewers to differentiate their product on increasingly crowded retail shelves. One way to do so is with bottle design. When Georgia’s SweetWater Brewery decided to launch its line of bottle-conditioned beers it turned to O-I to design a new bottle. O-I created a proprietary bottle design inspired by a shape that is common among Belgian beer bottles. The SweetWater logo is embossed on the shoulder of the bottle and the brewery’s motto “Don’t Float the Mainstream” is molded into the bottle under the label. The neck of the bottle (more bulbous than the traditional longneck bottle) incorporates a water wave pattern.

Owens-Illinois recognize that the craft brewing industry represents a significant market opportunity for them. As a result they have introduced their Artisan Collection which comprises four distinctive families of beer bottle designs – Belgium, Champ, Advantage, and Commander. It looks like O-I aims to stay on the cutting edge of beer bottle design innovation for many years to come. I’ll raise my bottle (designed in Toledo) and drink to that.