A Brief History...

Imagine that it's a Sunday afternoon.  You go to the refrigerator, grab a can of beer, sit back in your recliner and turn on your big screen TV to the football game.  Ahh, that's nice.   Now, image the same scenario 100 years ago.  Well, there was no professional football!  No televisions!  No recliners!  No refrigerators!  And, worst of all, no cans of beer!  Arg!!  How did people live back then??

Back in the early 1900's, there were only a couple of ways to get beer home  One way was using a bucket called a "growler."  You could go to your local establishment and they would fill your bucket with draught beer.  Then, you could carefully carry it home quickly before it got warm.  Another way was to lug a wooden case of long neck bottles which was quite heavy and one could work up quite a thirst just by hauling the beer.

Around 1909, a small brewery in Montana first inquired as to whether it was possible to distribute beer in a more convenient can. At that time cans were beginning to be used for other purposes, so why not put beer into a can?  It was a good thought, so the American can company set out to investigate the feasibility.  It turned out to be easier said than done.  In fact, it would be another 24 years before beer cans became a realty.  So what too so long?

The first problem was to find a material and process that could be mass produced at a reasonable cost.  The hard part was to find material and manufacturing process that could produce a can strong enough to withstand the intense pressure during the pasteurization process.  You can bet there were many seams and bottom lids blown off during their initial tests.  With these obstacles, the first results were unsuccessful and the answer was "no," beer couldn't be canned.

Next came another huge setback: Prohibition.  On December 18, 1917 Congress passed the 18th amendment that banned the sale and transport of alcoholic beverages.  The amendment was ratified on January 16, 1919 with the provision that it would take effect one year after the amendment was ratified by the state legislatures.  So, on midnight of January 16, 1920, the country became dry.  Or, so they intended.  Prohibition may have had good intentions but it didn’t work.    Alcohol now was made available through the mob and underground sources.  Finally on February 20, 1933 Congress pass the 21^st amendment which repealed the 18th amendment.  This was ratified on December 5, 1933 and once again the breweries restarted production.

Anticipating the end of Prohibition the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company agreed to test market beer in a can produced by the American Can Company.  In November of 1933, the first beer cans rolled off a temporary canning line.  The brand was Krueger Special, a green flat top beer can that had opening instructions on the side to tell customers how to use an opener (aka,. Church key) to open these new fangled containers.  In January 1935, Krueger again made history by becoming the first company to sell canned beer. 

The cans were a hit.  In June of 1935, the government mandated that all beer cans be stamped with the phrase “Internal Revenue Tax Paid”  or commonly referred to as IRTP.  This labeling requirement remained until March 30 1950.  The IRTP markings on a can are a good way of dating early cans.

A crowntainer is a type of "cone top" beer can, so named because of their funnel-like tops.  The first can , entered the picture in September 1935, when the G. Heilemann Brewing Company of La Crosse, WI first marketed them. Schlitz was the first national brewer to follow suit. This was a style that appealed to smaller brewers because cone-top cans could be filled on existing bottling lines. By 1960, though, the big nationals had driven many of those smaller brewers out of business and the cone-top era came to an end.

For more information on the different types of cans, visit the Beer Can Collector's of America web site.

History of the can...

Below are some key dates in the history of beer cans.  The top of the timeline is information about beer cans in general.  the bottom of the timeline are key dates about crowntainers.