How much is a Billy Beer can worth? 

President Jimmy Carter's younger brother, Billy, promoted beer in his name.  The brew was first introduced by the Falls City Brewing Co. in Louisville, Kentucky in 1977.  It was also produced by the Cold Spring Brewing Co. in Cold Spring, Minnesota, by the West End Brewing Co in Utica, New York, and by the Pearl Brewing Co. in San Antonio, Texas. 

 Text at the top of the can reads "Brewed expressly for and with the personal approval of one of America's all-time great beer drinkers -- Billy Carter."  Toward the bottom, above Billy's signature is the claim "I had this beer brewed up just for me.  I think it's the best I ever tasted.  And I've tasted a lot.  I think you'll like it too." 

Breweriana.com purchased a collection of about 3800 beer cans from four friends who collected when they were children in the 1970s.  The children (Paul Dybvig, Howard Shook, Pete Houk and Tom Cote) lived in the Dayton, Ohio area and called their joint collecting operation the "Cash Can Collecting Co." 

 Represented in this collection of about 3800 old beer cans are cone tops, flat tops, self-opening cans, gallons, quarts, small cans, pints, US cans, Non-US cans, rare cans, common cans, minty cans and dumpers...a little bit of everything. 

Prior to contacting Breweriana.com, the four collectors had various offers and expressions of interest in buying or consigning their collection.  After a visit and appraisal of the collection by Breweriana.com, the group decided to accept Breweriana.com's offer which was significantly higher than any others they had received. 

It's easy to find the most recently added items on Breweriana.com.

1.  The icons and dates for each category on the home page enable you to quickly see when there was an update to a category. 

2.  Once you click on the category that was last updated, you will be brought to a page to browse thumbnails of items in that category.  By default, these thumbnails load in alphabetical order.  To quickly see what was most recently added to the category, select "Newest Items First" from the "Order By" drop-down menu. 

The Breweries of Alton Alton, Illinois

- Written by Kevin Kious and Donald Roussin and reprinted with permissin from the American Breweriana Journal.

Alton, Illinois is located on limestone bluffs rising above the Mississippi River just five miles from its
junction with the Missouri River, and about twenty-five miles north of St. Louis, Missouri.  A number of
important events in American history occurred there, such as the slaying of abolitionist editor Elijah P.
Lovejoy in 1837, and the hosting of the final Lincoln-Douglas debate in 1858.
 

Introduction to the New Breweriana.com

If you're reading this and you are a previous user of Breweriana.com, then you probably realized Breweriana.com now has a new look, new content, and new functionality.  I'm sure there will be bugs to work out in the first few weeks so please bear with us as we work them out.  Hopefully, the new site will help provide you better service in the long run. 

Much of the content of the new site is aimed at educating the new collector or the potential new collector.  Much of the content is pretty basic (Beer Cans 101 if you will).  Over time, more detailed information for more advanced collectors also will be added. 

Here are a few pointers related to the new site:

History of Brewing in Pueblo  CO:  Walter Brewing Co.

- Reprinted with permission from the American Breweriana Journal.

- By Robert Collyer