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!

And now... a glimmer of hope...

Long ages ago, when I was assisting my can-collecting nephew, we went to an old dumping ground my dad called "Sowtown".  A little research years later told me it was the former site of a platted town called Centerville that died as quickly as it was born when the railroad decided to put its depot a few miles southeast in Monroeville.  Or perhaps, as my memories are no longer clear, it might have been a dump we discovered in the wild area of Pokagon State Park.  In either event we found a can that was almost unidentifiable.  It was fragile and about 95% rust.  But we had discovered the "magic" of boric acid solution, and took it back to see what could be salvaged.  What we saw- barely- once looked like what you see above.  Its value was negligible- its condition on the lower end of the "poor" category- but I fell in love nonetheless.  I always did have a thing for rusty, "antiquey" cans.

I was hooked then and there on Drewrys, though it would be years later when I could drink it legally.  Soon after I found a cork "big D" cap in my dad's 1937 Chevy upholstery.  But you remember the 1990's- Budweiser marched over everything and everyone like the Wehrmacht over Eastern Europe, and Drewrys became another on the long list of "Hey, remember that beer" brands.

So the other day, I hit something I couldn't believe on eBay, and today it came home.

That's right, a little Drewrys Draft "shortie", formerly the holder of 12 ounces of South Bend's most refreshing beer.  And since I have another cap coming, I was going to wait and post this sometime this weekend.  But then I did a little research, and was knocked over by this bit of news:

Though Drewrys labeled beer has been non-existent  since it was last produced in 1997, Drewrys was purchased in 2011 by Chicago-based entrepreneur, Francis Manzo. The city of South Bend will be the site of launch for the rebranded beer as this was the location for Drewrys largest operation. Production is slated for 2013.

WHAAAAT?

I quickly found the website for the reborn company, and learned that it's TRUE!!!  Sometime this year- and I signed up for the newsletter and liked them on Facebook so that I can get some as soon as possible.  To be sure, it will NOT be the original recipe- diligent searching came up with a verdict of "recipe lost", which we will blame on Pittsburgh Brewing, since they had the rights last (though they never brewed it).  However, they have looked at notes and consulted experts to come up with as close as they can to the original flavor.  Also, they hope to be able to produce it in South Bend as soon as feasible.  It seems that for now it will be brewed in the last location it was brewed- Evansville- and will be mainly marketed to the South Bend area.

South Bend is just under 2 hours away.  I can't wait!

And now- tall twists!

I had to jump on this when I saw it on eBay- almost nobody seems to collect the tall twist-off caps but me!

I was amazed I didn't have the Bud, but mine had "twist off" written on the top. The two red ones are Kruegers.  Krueger was a NJ beer that in January of 1935 became the first beer sold in cans.  The brewery sold out to Narragansett in 1961, which was soon later gobbled up by Falstaff.  I had an Olympia TT, but mine was gold-ringed.  The Rainier is the first I've ever seen touting a "recyclable bottle".  Bottom left is a generic with the Georgia state seal on the bottom.  Yes, that PBR from West Virginia is green; Never saw THAT Genesee logo before; the last two are a Schmidt's and a Lucky.

This wasn't the whole haul- there was a Coke cap (WTH) and a double of the generic.  Also a Miller High Life that improved upon the one I had (which has gone into retirement in the bottom of the Old Crown box).  Oh, and this one:

Despite two days of extensive searching and contacting the seller, I still have no idea what this is.  Anyone with an idea will win the coveted Trophee du Beagle!

Because it pays to pay attention...

I mentioned on the main blog that Mynx had sent me her lovely artwork, but I had got so excited that I forgot she said she was sending caps with it!  So I dug out the package, and sure enough, here were these two beauties:

All the way from Oz, here are two from Coopers.  Not only are they noted for their high quality beers, but are also the world's largest manufacturer of home-brew equipment.  As you can see, the brewery is celebrating their 150th anniversary.  If the pic I saw on Wikipedia are accurate, I believe the red one is a Sparkling Ale (which is one of those cloudy, stir-it-first English styles) and the green one is their original pale ale.   Many thanks again!

Here's the other bunch!

I told you I had another lot coming in, and this was a fun bunch to look at and research.

Let's start clockwise from the black horse, which would be a Black Horse Ale.  Originally a Carling product, it was contracted to the Fred Koch brewery in 1961.  Like all small breweries, Koch was shuffled around and ended up with Genesee by 1984.  Genesee actually won a gold at the great American Beer Festival in 1988 with BHA, but by the early nineties had shuttered most of the Koch brands, including BHA.  Next is an Old German, followed by a National Bohemian.  Nat Boh is still around as a Pabst brand, but the interesting thing is where it ties into the Altes on the bottom.  Altes was first brewed by Tivoli from 1933.  Tivoli changed names to Altes Brewing in '48, and in 1954 Nat Boh bought them out.  Nat Boh merged with Carling in 1973, and were both part of the G. Heilman empire from 1979-96.  I'm not sure when the Altes brand was shut down in all this, but I believe the brewery itself was shut down in '91 so we'll go with that.

Next is a Van Merritt, which was easily the hardest to get a straight story about.  As far as I can confirm, it was Brewed by the Burlington Brewing Co. of Burlington, WI from 1933 to 1953, when it changed names to reflect its main beer.  Two years later, the Van Merritts sold out, and here's where the story gets iffy.  I have seen it connected to the Wisconsin Brewing company, to Centlivre/Old Crown, to Monarch Brewing in Joliet, to Joseph Huber, and even saw an article saying the company's assets had been sold to a New York cosmetic firm.  In any event, I saw no evidence that it was brewed after the brewery closed in 1957, but the cap is plastic lined and not cork, so I can't really be sure.

Then comes a Storz, one of the old-time brews founded by Gottlieb Storz in Omaha in 1876.  Grain Belt bought them out in 1966, and shut down the plant in 1972.  Next is another Blitz-Weinhard, which was another one of those brands that got bounced around and finally got shut down when Strohs sold the brewery in its death throes to Miller, who shuttered the plant.  Then a Schmidt, the aforementioned Altes, and a Schlitz Malt Liquor.

This bunch was neat for me.  So many of these brands- Altes, Nat Boh, Van Merritt, Storz, even the Bosch from last post- they were some of those neat, uncommon brands that were within reach of the average can collector when we all got started in the seventies.  Heartbreaking to see all the brands- and the jobs they supported- gone by the wayside, many of them through the 1990's stupidity of Strohs and G. Heilman.  I really salute Pabst and the various startups that kept so many of these brands alive.

I think I may have one more coming, I'll let you know.

Playing catch up

Well, now that I've gotten a bunch of new caps in, let's take a look at the latest.

Okay, so the top three on the first row we covered last post (which admittedly was in July, but...).  Right after that is a Beck's Premier Light, then a Smirnoffs (as is the one right below it).  The Coors Light and Miller Lite are variations that I acquired on or about Jack's surprise party earlier this year, along with the Smirnoff.  The CL has a white boundary around the mountain.  I think the ML was actually from in front of KC's new apartment on our first visit.  Next was a Bud Light Lime that Scrappy found on a walk (no lie!) and next to it is a Sam Adams Oktoberfest I saved from a dumpster.   The next Bud Light was found right out in front of the door on another walk.

The Dow is a cork, undetermined date, and you should remember the crazy Dow story from last post.  (Consider it a subtle hint to look at the last post again!) From here on, we have the caps from the new lot I got yesterday.  First off is another Buckeye, albeit more modern than the previous two I've posted.  That next one (row three center if you lost track) is from Capital Brewery in Middleton WI (which isn't a capital, but a suburb of state capital Madison).  This plant was founded in 1986 in what used to be an egg-processing plant.  The red one (which is hard to make out even up close) is from Whole Foods and bears their premium Authentic Food Artisan seal. 

Leading off row four is Big Sky IPA, made by a craft brewer from Missoula and is the biggest brewer in Montana.  They gained fame of sorts a few years back when Moosehead brewing sued them over the name of their brown ale- Moose Drool.  Then comes a modern Berghoff, and there's actually a connection between it and the third guy in the second picture.  They are both part of the brewing empire of Ravinder Minhas and his wife Manjit.

Ravinder, his wife, and their beers Boxer, Lazy Mutt Farmhouse Ale, and Mountain Crest Lager.

They built up the Mountain Crest brewing company renting space in the old Joseph Huber brewery in Monroe, WI.  Huber is of course a veteran of the beer wars, founded in 1845 and the oldest contiuing brewery in the midwest.   After Huber bellied up it was bought by Leinkugel, and in 2006 they sold it to Mountain Crest.  Mountain Crest had been basically brewing in Wisconsin to export to their home in Calgary, and they split the company into a separate outfit to brew Berghoff products, and renamed the main brewery Minhas Brewing.  They brew Huber's line of beers along with the aforementioned cap on picture 2, which says "Bock=Taste" and belongs to their Billy Bock beer.

That puts us in the middle of row three and Big Boss Brewing.  This is a Raleigh, NC, outfit founded in 2006.  Next is an Alpine, celebrating their 75th anniversary in 2012.  The distinctive "Banquet" logo of the next one marks it as a Coors, from their recent short-lived ad campaign.  Last row of Pic one leads off with the very interesting Coney Island Craft lager.  This beer, which a portion of the proceeds goes to support Coney Island, is brewed by Shmaltz brewing, originally  the American Jewish Celebration Brewing Co.  They started out brewing something cleverly called HE'BREW, which was actually a pomegranite beer.  They went on to develop their Coney Island line along with others, including a winter ale they call Human Blockhead.  You tell me, we both know.

Next is a Brown's, founded in 1993 by Garry and Kelly Brown in a dilapidated Troy, NY, warehouse.  Then is a Bayhawk, an Irvine, CA, outfit who won a world beer cup gold in 2002 with their "chocolate" brown porter.  Next is Mexico's Carta Blanca, the original premium brewed by the same outfit that brings you Tecate, Sol, and Dos Equis.  The Bosch is another long time vet, whose home brewery in Houghton, MI, closed in 1973.  Leinkugel bought them as well, but declining sales led them to shut the brand down in 1986.  Devout worshippers of the brand have been hoping to get Leinkugel to re-start production, and Red Jacket, which brews now in that very building, has tried to get them to sell the recipe.  To the most recent of my information, Leinkugels has said nothing.

Which brings us to pic 2, which is led by a Coors Light with the "Twist Off" and arrow sweeping around the perimeter.  Next up is a Boulevard, a mate to the IPA I still have on it's bottle just inches from this keyboard.  I've already covered the Billy Bock, so that leaves us with this cute little guy with the colorful little town on it.  This is an Ayinger, from the village of Aying outside Munich.  This brewery is young by German standards,  only 136 years old.

That's it for now, but stay tuned for something coming real soon!

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.