The story of the St Peters bottle by John Murphy, founder and owner of the St Peters Brewery:

"I bought the original oval quart bottle at an antiques fair at Olympia, West London around 1990. This antiques fair is the leading fair in the UK and I bought it mainly because it was such a lovely object. At the time I had a vague idea about setting up a brewery at some point but no firm plans whatsoever. The bottle was sold to me as a rare and unusual late 18th century bottle.

Some years later when I was in the process of setting up St Peter's Brewery I sat down with graphic designers and asked them to design a unique bottle for me. I wanted something as distinctive as the Coca Cola bottle which would be also registrable and very attractive. They came up with various design proposals but none seemed right. I then remembered the quart sized oval bottle and showed it at the next meeting. Everyone was unanimous that we had found a solution, we then proceeded to find out more about the bottle. The only clue we had was that the original bottle had a small circular cartouche on the front which said 'Thomas Gerrard, Gibbstown'. I assumed Gibbstown was somewhere in the British Isles but when I looked it up in various reference books, I could not find it at all. I therefore went to a reference library and consulted the huge Oxford World Atlas. The only Gibbstown listed was in New Jersey directly across the Delaware river from Philadelphia, it is now a suburb of Philadelphia. I then wrote to the Philadelphia Historical Society and asked them if they knew of a Thomas Gerrard in Gibbstown. They said that they would happily do some research. They sent me information that Thomas Gerrard owned a tide water inn in Gibbstown around 1770 and said that he had his own bottles made for beer and liquor and supplied them to passing ships. One of these bottles must have found its way to Britain and then on to the Olympia fair. Although they had never come across one before the Philadelphia Historical Society said the attribution is certain".