Unexpected riches

I started out today thinking I had but two caps to show you.

The first is my latest "eBaby", a King's Tavern Ale.  This cork cap is of 1934-9 vintage and brewed by what was then the Flint Hill Brewery, which eventually took on the name of it's home town, Frankenmuth Michigan.  The Frankenmuth brewery was bought in 1989 by a German investor, but it burned down the next year.  He sold it to another group who rebuilt as a craft brewpub, and by 1993 it was up and running again.  Then in 1996 it was the target of an F3 tornado.  Again it rose from the ashes only to be shut down when a bank loan was turned down.  Still another group re-established it in 2009.

The other is what my son has been drinking, Redd's Apple Cider Ale by Miller.  It has "natural apple flavor"- IOW, no apples were harmed in the brewing.

As I said, I thought that was it.  But Juli over at Surviving Boys said she'd send me some caps she'd acquired, and I checked the mailbox to see if they arrived.  Hoo Boy, did they!

SEVENTEEN caps, all new to the collection!  On the top row that you see, these caps are ones I have, but not this design or style.  The first is Brooklyn Pennant Ale.  Then comes a Saranac with a nifty New York State silhouette in the middle.  That Troeg's is just a couple shades different on the maize color than the one I have.  The next one is from Bluepoint out of Long Island.  After that is a Bud Select that I didn't have, and ending the top row is a Wauchusett which is like one I had, but the reverse color scheme.

The next row are all new to me.  Rogue Ale- "for the Rogue in all of us"- is out of Oregon, and (hey Deadliest Catch fans) one of their beers is Captain Sig's Northwestern Ale.  That dude has his name on everything!

Beer, coffee, salmon patties- even popcorn fish!

Anyway, that next white cap is an O.K. beer from Okocim brewery near Warsaw, Poland.  This is from Carlsburg Polska, the Polish division of Carlsburg brewing, and is their premium lager.  Then comes an Affligem Blonde, a pale ale brewed on license to the Affligem abbey in Belgium and distributed by Heineken.  If you look all the way to the end of line two, you'll see another foreign beer distributed by Heineken.  It is a style called La Rossa, a doppelbock (double bock) brewed by Italy's Birra Moretti out of Udine.

After the Affligem is a pair from Ommegang, a company out of Cooperstown, NY that brews Belgian style ales.  They were formed originally from a US beer importer and three Belgian breweries which have since been absorbed, plus another Belgian brewer, Duvel Moortgat, who bought out the whole thing in 2003.

Finally in row two, and additionally in row three are a pair from Abita, an outfit out of New Orleans.  The brown one is a Munich lager they call Amber; the purple is called Purple Haze, and has raspberry flavor.  Next to the Purple Haze is one from Heavy Seas from Clipper City brewery.  It's founder, Baltimore's Hugh Sisson, was behind making craft beer legal in Maryland, and they brew 24 different styles in 3 "fleets".

Those last two were a pain in the butt as they had no ID on them.  The first is a Scottish Ale brewed in Belgium (I didn't make that up) by the Scotch de Silly brewery (didn't make that up either; Silly is a town of about 8,000 in central Belgium where the brewery is).  The other turned out to be my second Steinlager ( and first that didn't say "Steinlager" on it).

My best addition says we're at 745 caps now!  Not as big as many, but if you consider I don't count caps that have different things on the bottom (like playing cards or rebuses) as different and stay away from "non-beer" caps as much as possible, it ain't bad!