Beer Can Appreciation Day
When : Always January 24th
Now here's a day that I can really get into! Actually, I can "get
into" the stuff inside even more. Beer Can Appreciation Day
celebrates that great day in 1935 when beer was first sold in
cans.
Okay, laugh if you will. But, believe me when I say that Beer
Can Appreciation Day is a big and important day to many
people.
A lot of people do not know that there's a huge number of beer can
collectors out there. Collectors meticulously open a beer can from
the bottom, empty it (and drink the beer, of course), then wash and
dry it. For beer can collectors, there is no shortage of types of
beer, cans and bottles, and sizes. A beer can collector may have
hundreds of cans and bottles.
News You Can Use:
There's a market for beer cans. If you come across an old can, do
not throw it out. Check out the prices in a collector's catalog, or
on Ebay.
Beer Can Appreciation Day provides us with the opportunity
to enjoy and appreciate the many different kinds of beer cans.
Enjoy today by starting, or adding to your beer
can collection. As you empty the new cans, drink the
contents. After all, you don't want to be wasteful do you?
Important Note:
Please drink
responsibly. And, if you drink.......don't drive.
Origin of Beer Can Appreciation Day:
We know that this day celebrates the first time beer as
available in cans. We have yet to discover the creator or the
origin of Beer Can Appreciation Day. Perhaps the originator opened
up a few too many beer cans on the day of creation, and ...uh....
didn't remember the next day.
Social activities available:
Cooler Crew Cachers feel strongly that winters are here to
stay in Minnesota. We feel that the citizens of Saint Paul and
neighboring communities should take advantage of this situation by
participating in the winter activities that are available in our
communities. Rather than hide from winter, people should go out and
have fun in it. We encourage everyone to live by the
Cooler Crew Cachers credo:
DON'T
HIBERNATE...CELEBRATE
I have several of the Grain Belt cans to trade.
A Toast to the Beer Can: Happy 75th Birthday New Jersey's Gottfried
Krueger Brewing Company churned out the world's first beer can on
Jan. 24 1935, stocking select shelves in Richmond, Va., as a market
test. Be sure to crack open a cold one on Jan. 24, the day canned
beer celebrates its 75th birthday. New Jersey's Gottfried Krueger
Brewing Company churned out the world's first beer can in 1935,
stocking select shelves in Richmond, Va., as a market test. The
experiment took off and American drinkers haven't looked back
since, nowadays choosing cans over bottles for the majority of the
22 gallons of beer they each drink per year, according to the U.S.
Census Bureau. Canned brewskies may have only hit shelves in 1935,
but the drink's history goes back much further — at least
6,000 years, in fact, to ancient Iraq. Though it is impossible to
tell just how many important decisions in world history were
lubricated by a pint or two, the potent potable has played a role
in at least a few milestone events, from the plagues of medieval
Europe to the founding of the United States. Who drank the first
fermented wheat? Beer is nearly as old as civilization itself,
historians believe, as the accidental fermentation of wheat or
barley — which produces a rudimentary beer — almost
certainly occurred soon after the advent of crop agriculture (the
question becoming then who was the first to volunteer to drink a
murky pool of wheat water?). The first concrete archaeological
evidence of the first beer comes from Iraq, where ancient Sumerians
built the first agriculture-based cities approximately 6,000 years
ago. A stone seal discovered and dated to that era actually details
the beer-making process in a poem dedicated to Ninkasi, the
Sumerian goddess of brewing. Two millennia later, Babylonians
living in the same area had perfected at least 20 different brews.
Brewing was a highly regarded profession and almost the exclusive
domain of the society's women, as females were also responsible for
turning grain into bread. Beer was enormously popular with the
masses in all early civilizations, historians believe, since grain
was readily available and the fermentation process relatively easy.
It was also viewed as an important source of nutrition and often
rationed as payment; the laborers that built the Great Pyramids in
Cairo, for example, were paid partly in beer. Egyptians didn't look
down upon the drink, however. Pots of beer also accompanied
pharaohs into the afterlife, along with other food, gold and
priceless offerings placed in their tombs. Medieval monks make
money During the Middle Ages, European monks began to make and
drink their own stock during periods of fast as a way to avoid
malnutrition. The nutritional properties of beer remained important
through the medieval period, when plagues made water sources
questionable. Having gone through a cooking and boiling process,
beer was considered a trusted alternative, offering some cherished
calories to boot. Though many households did their own brewing,
monastic beers were generally far superior and led many townspeople
to visit their local monasteries for a mug of beer and a meal. The
bed-and-brew houses that monks opened to accommodate pilgrims
traveling through are considered the precursor to the modern
hospitality industry, historians say. In addition to helping many
medieval Europeans through times of famine and sickness, beer may
have been partially responsible for populating the New World a few
centuries later. The pilgrims sailing from England to America
aboard the Mayflower in 1620 originally intended to land at
Virginia, but arrived badly off course in Cape Cod instead.
Realizing their mistake, they debated continuing on to their
original destination, but ruled against it due to a general lack of
rations and especially beer, according to historical documents. The
colony of Plymouth, where pilgrims shared beer produced from barley
crops during the first Thanksgiving, was the result. Prohibition
shapes American tastes Beer-making got a major boost during the
Industrial Revolution, when steam power and artificial cooling made
beers quicker to produce and easier to store. Breweries
subsequently became a big business across Europe and the United
States — stymied there only temporarily during the
Prohibition years of 1919 to 1933. Ironically, it was the
Prohibition that ultimately shaped the American population's taste
for beer. The stronger beer that was the norm before Prohibition
gave way to much weaker varieties afterwards, as people had become
accustomed to bootlegged brews, which were always watered down for
maximum profit. The Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company capitalized
on the reintroduction of alcohol in the United States in short
order, introducing their beers in cans rather than bottles in
stores in 1935.