In honor of this weekend's 80th anniversary of the beer can: Some vintage Philly beer cans
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Which is your favorite?
artsbeercans.com
Fun fact: The officially celebrated date of the first canned beers is Jan. 24, 1935. The internet tells us:
That's the day cans of Krueger's Finest Beer and Krueger's Cream Ale first went on sale in Richmond, VA. But the beer can really made its debut some 14 months earlier — just before the repeal of Prohibition.
Neat! That means this Saturday, the beer can turns 80. To celebrate the technology that made beer drinking more portable, less stabby (broken glass bottles, ouch), and much less likely to skunk your beer, here are some very old — ahem, retro — versions of cans from breweries in Philly and around Pennsylvania. Appreciate the beers your grandfathers were carrying around the city, people.
First, our beloved lager. Early versions of Yuengling's cans had this bottleneck-y style, with your typical bottle cap.
ebeercans.com, photo from Matthew Newman at bostonbeercans.com.
This 1964 can was "packed for Food Fair Stores Inc., Philadelphia PA.," by D.G. Yuengling & Son, Inc.
Dan Morean's Breweriana.com
...another can from Yuengling (undated):
Compare those to the more current cans, like these that rolled out in 2005 (kind of glad to see the weird highlighter-yellow gone):
ETA: Cans like this are still around (more gold than yellow!) as Premium and Premium Light are a different product from lager.
And today:
Check out this Ortlieb's can from the early 1970's:
Dan Morean's Breweriana.com
And Reading Brewing Company, which closed in 1976:
Dan Morean's Breweriana.com
And Schmidt's:
Dan Morean's Breweriana.com
There's also this (rather badass, we must say) can of Mustang Malt Lager, from Pittsburgh Brewing Company:
Dan Morean's Breweriana.com
And don't forget, now that Victory's got a canning line, they're releasing Summer Love Ale in cans this summer. The Liberty Bell is on the bottle's label, let's hope it's on the can's.
