wayweird

“Hey Tom! Bring me a can of beer out of the refrigerator,” commanded my father as he watched the Cubs lose another one on the black and white TV.

“I’m only 8 years old. I shouldn’t be touching this stuff. It’s against the law ya know,” as I handed him the can and the can opener.

“Nah, you’re in the clear as long as you don’t drink it. Consider yourself lucky that you don’t have to run down to the tavern and bring it home in a bucket,” said Dad as he punched a small hole in the top of the Schlitz can.

“Whadaya mean bring it home in a bucket?”

“When I was your age I had to run down to the corner tavern and carry the beer back home to Grandpa in a bucket,” he explained as he punched a bigger hole across from the small hole.

“Why’d you do that Dad? Didn’t it slosh out of the bucket? How come you just didn’t go get some cans of beer?”

“Because beer didn’t come in cans back then, and even when the beer cans came out Gramps still liked it from fresh from the tap. And the buckets had a cover on them so the beer didn’t spill out,” Dad answered as he handed the can opener back to me and took his first refreshing swig.

My dad was always telling me and my siblings how primitive things were back when he was growing up and sometimes I had a hard time believing him. But this explanation checks out.  My father was a child of the roaring ‘20’s in Chicago. Although Prohibition in the U.S. was in effect from 1920 to 1933, my dad would have been ten years old when beer was legal again. Back in those days no one had any qualms about sending kids to fetch the suds.

In fact before Prohibition that means of delivery seems to have been quite common. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, fresh beer was carried from the local pub to one’s home by means of a small-galvanized pail. Rumor has it that when the beer sloshed around the pail, it created a rumbling sound as the CO2 escaped through the lid, thus the term “growler” was coined.

Before World War II, city kids used to bring covered buckets of draft beer from a local bar or brewery to workers at lunchtime or to their parents at dinnertime, a practice called “rushing the growler.”

So the Old Man wasn’t kidding me after all. Beer cans weren’t always with us. Do you know what?

The “official” birthday of the beer can is January 24, 1935. That’s the day cans of Krueger’s Finest Beer and Krueger’s Cream Ale first went on sale in Richmond, VA. Life just keeps on getting better and easier every year.

Happy Birthday Beer Can! What would we do without you?

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