-> In the `60's here in New Zealand, drinkers used to bring a half-  
-> gallon glass jar to their pubs to be filled up for consuming at  
-> home, and every tram and bus heading into the suburbs after 6pm  
-> would see 10 or 20 of these things being carried aboard. 
 
-> The odd one would explode, and an enquiry by a columnist (Noel  
-> Holmes) and I soon determined the cause;  if the owner was really  
-> determined to have his money's worth, he'd get the barman to fill  
-> the thing right up. 
 
-> This left no air gap for escaping carbon dioxide to expand into,  
-> creating enormous pressure that forced the smallest flaw in the  
-> glass to fail - leaving many a frustrated drinker clinging to a  
-> paper bag full of glass shards and half a gallon of liberated  
-> beer. 
  
I doubt that it had anything to do with carbon dioxide. If there was 
nowhere for it to go, it would just stay dissolved in the liquid. More 
likely, I think, was that the beer warmed up as it was being carried on 
the bus, and the liquid expanded faster than the bottle did. This wold 
cause the bottle to burst, but not very violently. There would be 
almost no elastic energy to propel the shards outward, so the paper bag 
could contain them. If a container that does have some gas in it is 
heated until it explodes, the gas expands violently as soon as the 
container ruptures, throwing fragments away at high speeds. 
  
The bars should have sold these people warm beer. Then it wouldn't have 
warmed up any more, so the bottles wouldn't have burst. 
  
                             dow 
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