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.

The great martin beer tasting #2.

My son KC and I attempted another beer tatsing yesterday.  What you as possible beer connoisseurs need to know about us is that we grew up on American Lager.  My Dad started on Black Label and thankfully switched to PBR.  My Unlce Dick was a Falstaff man, as was my brother.  Another uncle preferred Busch.  A brother in law subsisted on Miller Lite and Meister Brau, later Milwaukee's Best.  A cousin introduced me to Drewrys.  The nice thing was, when I was little, you could go into our local tavern and get all these and more- Old Chicago, Colt 45, Little Kings, Schlitz, Blatz, the list goes on and on.  So with apologies to some of my friends, carbonated coffees like Guinness don't hit the spot for us.  In fact, we checked the review on BeerAdvocate.com and found that we only agreed once- and it was the day's winner.  So, let's take a look at the contestants and how they did:

#1 was the Flying Dog brewery's Tire Bite ale.  This was a "Kolsch" beer, originating from Koln (Cologne), Germany.

KC carefully poured himself a drink, sipped and said, "It Tastes like a Rolling Rock... with some bad aftertaste".  I didn't detect the aftertaste, but agree that it was very similar to a Rolling Rock (IOW, good when you are hot and thirsty, but not neccessarily the brand you buy for lazying around the house.

Next up was St. Pauli Girl, famous from posters  worldwide.  It comes in a green bottle, which I do not understand why ANYONE uses anymore, and of course it had the green bottle's curse...

KC:  "Good, but a bit skunky."
It was good despite the skunk, very light.  But why on earth put it in the damn green bottles anyway?  You KNOW three bottles out of five will be skunked. 

Next up came a contestant from Leinkugels:

Leinie's Red Lager is a Vienna-Style lager, rich amber color and a bit stronger than the regular American beer.

At this point, alcohol was beginning to effect the camerawork, so we had to stage KC's reaction.  (The original pic was a nice view of his shorts, though.)  He detected a bit of a salt taste, and agreed with me that it had a bit of a metallic taste, as if it had sat in a keg for a while prior to bottling.  It improved somewhat after we took Scrappy for a walk, but not much.

Next up:

Becks, from the same company that now owns St. Pauli Girl.  KC has had this in the past, and said he liked it.  But as you can see, it was in a green bottle, so you know what that means...

Yup, a little skunky.  Not bad, though I think if you take the skunk out, I'd have preferred the SPG.

This brings us to the most bitter failure of the lot- and not surprisingly, the highest rated on BeerAdvocate of our six...

(Funny how you get more junk on the table the more beer we drink, eh?) Rogue Brewery's Dead Guy Ale.  From Ashland Oregon, this is a Maibock, or pale bock.

KC: "YUKKK!  This tastes like straight earwax!!!"  I took a sip, and while I don't profess to know what brewed earwax tastes like, I quickly proceeded to the kitchen sink with this brew.  Only trying to get up off the floor kept KC from beating me to the sink with his mouthful.  I washed away this failure with a nice cold PBR.

We had one contestant left:

A Schlafly Unfiltered Hefeweizen, or wheat beer.  This one is brewed at St. Louis Brewing, and was founded by the nephew of activist Phyllis Schlafly.  Now, I've had wheats before, and they have two main charactaristics- light, with a dry taste.  This one was about the same.  However, the dry wasn't as prominent here, and it was so smooth it seemed to evaporate just as it approached the throat.  KC pronounced it "pretty good", and even Scrappy liked it enough to search out every fallen drop.

Mighty damn tasty... where's MY glass?

So there we have our six contestants:

And the winner?  It was between the Flying Dog and the Schlafly, but the Hefeweizen wins out in the end!  Surprisingly, it was the second highest rated of the crew on BeerAdvocate as well.

Next round of new stuff

Yesterday, I added to my "collection" of print ads this old PBR magazine ad:

Not real sure what the NRA patch to the right of the toast-er is about, but whatever.  Today I got the latest cap:

A 1940-49 Jacob Ruppert, AKA Knickerbocker Beer.  Around the edge it reads: "Knickerbocker the talk of the town".  Ruppert was owned by the famous Colonel who owned the New York Yankees way back when, and his family.  They sold out in '66, and another brewery kept it alive until 1974.  It was ressurected in the 1990s like so many others, but Pabst finally pulled the plug in 1997.

Got some new oldies coming in...

...and the first to arrive is a lovely ancient Budweiser (Surprising in that the sender didn't account for the cardboard protection he put around it and it cost me 20 cents postage due!).

Maryland state seal, cork lined, and can't find a thing out about it as no online collector seems to have one!  Seller said 40's-50's, and that matches with the logo style.  The manner of the state coat of arms tends to put it towards the later end, so I'll guesstimate late 40's.