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Beta testing will determine U.S. plastic beer bottle spec(s)

Some time after a computer software code is written, but before it is commercially launched, it undergoes a period of beta testing. During this period, select users try the program out, spot bugs in it, figure out function shortcuts, criticize the program's performance and let the developer know what they like and don't like about the software.

Pw 20724 Somtimafta 1

They do this with the expectation that the final, commercial version of the program will be better than the beta version, modified--perhaps even totally rewritten--in response to the criticism and suggestions endured in its beta phase.

Two American brewers--Miller Brewing Co., Milwaukee, WI, and Anheuser-Busch, Inc., St. Louis, MO--are putting two different plastic bottles through a similar beta test process.

Miller Brewing has been at it longer, about five months, and has received some intense, withering criticism of its beta package. The trio (1 L, 20 oz, 16 oz) of amber bottles from Owens-Illinois' Continental PET Technologies (Florence, KY) are composed of five alternating layers of polyethylene terephthalate and MXD6 nylon into which an oxygen scavenger is dispersed. The bottle is capped with a 38-mm aluminum roll-on closure and labeled with metallized paper neck and body labels (see Packaging World, Dec. '98, p. 71, or packworld.com/go/beer). People with an interest in recycling have criticized every one of those packaging elements.

A-B waited for the environmental uproar over Miller's bottle to die down a bit before introducing its own plastic bottle (shown), a 16-oz, 211 dia long neck that stands 91/2" high--11/2" taller than Miller's 215 dia, 8" tall 16-oz bottle. Both bottles have champagne bases. Bud's features a distinctive tapered neck ring, designed to give the bottle a better "mouth feel."

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