What is a stubby holder?
Quite simply a stubby holder is a sleeve or cylinder designed to insulate a beverage, in its vessel, from external sources of heat. Stubby holders are called stubby holders in Australia due the term 'stubby' being used to describe a 375ml bottle of beer. Stubby - because they are typically shorter and fatter then other bottles like 330ml export beers. Outside of Australia stubby holders are known as can coolers, coolers,and in the US as Koozies.
A brief history of can coolers / stubby holders / Koozies
It the dark, old early 1980's, when clothes were big and bright and music was generated by black boxes called synthesizers, the polystyrene foam cooler was king. Pre-foamed into shape, it was large and cumbersome. On top of that, it wasn't very good at keeping beer cold either (probably because the bottle was not tightly held).
In the middle of the eighties though, at least one company claims to have brought in the first neoprene cooler from the US (where they are called Koozies (which is a brand name)) and changed the market overnight at the 1983-84 ashes series. Since those first few flew off the shelf, neoprene coolers or stubby holders (derived from the name given to 375ml bottles of beer here in Australia), whose invention has been attributed to Australian Shane Walsh, have ruled the roost when it comes to keeping beer cold.
Modern Day Stubby Holders
Today stubby holders are available in all shapes and sizes, but the basic materials have not changed until now. Therefore pretty much every derivation and iteration of the original stubby holder since it hit the market has been limited in its performance and quality by the fabric coated black neoprene and the printing techniques they require.
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