Chris goes crafty

Just got some new caps- and something else- in to share with you.  First up is something that will no doubt look familiar.

This Blatz is a mate to the Budweiser I got not long ago.  Unlike the Bud, I did find this one on the CCCI page, and they estimate a 1949-58 age.  In fact, I got it from the same guy- and he sent along a quarter to make up for the 50 cents postage due from the Bud.

That brings me to a set of Canadian corks that were both much older and more interesting than I imagined. 

Top and third are Boswells- one ale marked "QUEBEC" and one pale ale also marked thus.  Between them is a pale ale from William Dow and Co., Montreal.  Boswell was a brewer in Montreal from 1843-1952 until bought out by Dow. It was in turn bought out by Carling O'Keefe and shut down in 1966.  The Dow name was acquired with COK by Molson in 1989 and finally closed out by Molson in 1997.  But let me bring in Wikipedia to tell the really interesting part:


In August 1965, a patient presented to a hospital in Quebec City with symptoms suggestive of alcoholic cardiomyopathy. Over the next 8 months 50 more cases with similar findings appeared in the same area with 20 of these being fatal. It was noted that all patients were heavy drinkers who mostly drank beer and preferred the Dow brand, consuming an average of 24 pints of alcohol per day. Epidemological studies found that Dow had been adding cobalt sulfate to the beer for foam stability since July 1965 and that the concentration added in the Quebec city brewery was 10 times that of the same beer brewed in Montreal where there were no reported cases .^[3]
Although Dow denied any responsibility, the Dow Brewery in Quebec City temporarily shut down and the remaining beer was dumped into the Saint Lawrence River. At the time of the incident, Dow Ale was the number one selling beer in Quebec, however, as a result of the "tainted beer scandal" sales of the brand soon dropped dramatically never to recover.

UPDATE:  Found another page that claims Dow destoryed 390,000 cases of beer- or 16 years worth of beer for each of the 50 victims!
UPDATE #2:  A French-language  article I Looked at made several points about the Case.  For one, reporters were building a "case" out of bits and pieces of news that ended in unnecessary hysteria over the deal. Two, most of the other breweries in Canada, as well as some in the US of A, were at least testing the cobalt salts in their beers.  Third, the article listed Dow's market share at the time to be 51% and Quebec City's share over 85%.  A group was rumoured to exist among Canada's other brewers, and the article hinted that this group's fanning the fire of rumour was not out of the realm of possibility. Fourth, the article mentions that in light of 536 deaths from myocarditis in 1965 and 480 in 1966 in Quebec City, that 20 deaths and fifty cases over an 8 months span was far from earth shattering.  Apparently one of the doctors on the case, one Dr. Yves Morin, Quebec Institute of Cardiology, pushed the idea of cobalt being the problem to the province's newspapers.  I don't mean to bad-mouth Dr. Morin; he is a nationally-decorated cardiologist and Liberal member of Parliament.  But you gotta kinda wonder...
24 pints works out to around 32 cans a day- or in the neighborhood of 9 cases and a six-pack a week.  Somehow, I'm dubious that the cobalt sulfate killed them.  If this story is straight, the "victims" of "cobalt poisoning" were downing the average per capita Canadian year's worth of beer between Monday and Friday of every week.  And according to what I researched, this is the straight dope. Victims were malnourished enough that the first diagnoses were Beriberi.

The middle guy was a Dow pale ale.  I'm thinking it is a mid-40s, but couldn't find it.  The re Boswell was from 1942, the green from 1945.  Then at the bottom is a John H.R. Molson and Bros Export Ale, dating from 1935.

The other thing I got was this cute little bugger:

A four inch tall PBR!  Isn't it adoreable?  I decided to put in a shadow box, thus:

The background was from a picture of an advertisement painted on a brick wall on a building on historic 25th street in Ogden, Utah.  I cropped it onto a 4X6 glossy.