Whether you’d like to learn a little about crazy Aussie culture, or you’re looking for your next winning promotional idea, keep reading. Here’s everything you ever need to know about the little Aussie stubby holder.
Picture this: it’s a hot summer’s day in Australia, a real scorcher, and you and your mates are on holiday enjoying some cold beers by the pool. The problem is, those beers are getting warm faster than you can drink them, and that’s really saying something!
By the time you’ve popped the top and had a few sips, you’re getting lukewarm pale ale that is beginning to taste like what it looks like! Warm beer might be fine for those poor blokes who live way up north in the tropics, but for anyone enjoying a trip Down Under we need something cold and frosty to keep that heat at bay. Enter the Aussie stubby holder.
What IS a stubby holder?
It was this pressing problem that led to the invention of one of humanity’s greatest achievements – the ingenious stubby holder. This simple sheath of neoprene keeps cans or bottles of beer crispy cool for longer. So useful is it in fact, it’s a common household item used by millions of people all over Australia and the world to keep their drinks cold and dress them up a bit.
People love their stubby holders, and many people even enjoy collecting them with different designs and logos on them. But no matter what they look like, a stubby holder keeps your drink nicely chilled when the temperature rises.
History of the stubby holder
The concept has been around for a while and was mostly unsuccessful, but the first version that closely resembled our beloved modern stubby holder appeared in 1984 in the United States. The American Koozie company came up with a model constructed from polystyrene foam that was fashioned to fit that period’s major brand beer bottles. The only problem was it didn’t keep the drinks very cold, and was more often used to disguise the alcoholic beverage from the authorities – those poor Americans, sigh.
Australian Shane Walsh invented a new, improved model some years later, and his design was much more effective at keeping the drinks icy cold, so it quickly grew in popularity. He brought his design back home to Australia but had to redesign it to accommodate the fatter and shorter 375 mL beer sizes Down Under. These smaller versions of the koozie thus became known as the stubby!
The stubby holders of today are still very similar to the model fashioned by Walsh. The materials are the same and provide excellent insulation, but now they are available in a wide variety of shapes, sizes and colours as opposed to the original solid black version.
Stubby holders today
Nowadays the stubby holder has a new job in addition to keeping our beers nice and chilled on a hot day – they are a multi-million dollar marketing tool. It all began with the big breweries and drinks manufacturers making stubby holders with their name and logo, so if you were drinking a VB or a Fosters everyone around you would know it! Soon enough, every other beer brand small and large had their own stubby holders custom-made, and they became a common sight in every pub and beer hall across the land.
Branded stubby holders were also freely given away as promotional gifts with every carton of beer purchased, and you’d also get one as a parting gift if you toured a brewery. It was a promotional tool that worked wonders – just look around at your next barbecue get-together to see the enduring popularity of this invention, there’s a stubby holder standing between every can and bottle and the hand that drinks them!
The future of stubby holders
The stubby holder is now so popular they’ve gone past just being a promotional tool for beer brands. Just about any business, university, charity, festival, or brand of whatever type you can think of – all across the country, have their messages and images printed onto stubby holders to use as promotional products, giveaways, and souvenirs.
Thanks to today’s advanced printing processes, you can make them in any style or colour you desire at a cost-effective price. Stubby holders are a great way for any concern to promote itself, simply by handing them out to potential customers you are keeping your brand fresh in the minds of consumers along with keeping their beers fresh in their hands!
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