diff --git a/errors.go b/errors.go
index d3b9a8820..62393356a 100644
--- a/errors.go
+++ b/errors.go
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ import (
 
 	"github.com/gobuffalo/plush"
 	"github.com/gobuffalo/x/httpx"
+	"github.com/markbates/going/defaults"
 	"github.com/pkg/errors"
 )
 
@@ -83,6 +84,8 @@ func productionErrorResponseFor(status int) []byte {
 
 func defaultErrorHandler(status int, origErr error, c Context) error {
 	env := c.Value("env")
+	ct := defaults.String(httpx.ContentType(c.Request()), "text/html")
+	c.Response().Header().Set("content-type", ct)
 
 	c.Logger().Error(origErr)
 	c.Response().WriteHeader(status)
@@ -94,7 +97,6 @@ func defaultErrorHandler(status int, origErr error, c Context) error {
 	}
 
 	msg := fmt.Sprintf("%+v", origErr)
-	ct := httpx.ContentType(c.Request())
 	switch strings.ToLower(ct) {
 	case "application/json", "text/json", "json":
 		err := json.NewEncoder(c.Response()).Encode(map[string]interface{}{
diff --git a/errors_test.go b/errors_test.go
index 85925c3e6..fd69ea61b 100644
--- a/errors_test.go
+++ b/errors_test.go
@@ -8,6 +8,20 @@ import (
 	"github.com/stretchr/testify/require"
 )
 
+func Test_defaultErrorHandler_SetsContentType(t *testing.T) {
+	r := require.New(t)
+	app := New(Options{})
+	app.GET("/", func(c Context) error {
+		return c.Error(401, errors.New("boom"))
+	})
+
+	w := willie.New(app)
+	res := w.HTML("/").Get()
+	r.Equal(401, res.Code)
+	ct := res.Header().Get("content-type")
+	r.Equal("text/html", ct)
+}
+
 func Test_PanicHandler(t *testing.T) {
 	app := New(Options{})
 	app.GET("/string", func(c Context) error {