ArchaeoBlog

Side note: In the previous post I clicked on this link at that site regarding one Adolf Grenke’s “Breweriana” collection. Never heard of it m’self, but it reminded me of this post from a few days ago. One thing I neglected to mention there was that when I was a younger teenager a brief beer can collecting craze swept through my peer group network in Wisconsin. I didn’t get into it myself, but my best friend ‘Fritz’ did. That was when I first became aware of the myriad breweries that had been around the upper midwest before I was born or otherwise sentient. By the time I was aware of such things all we had left were pretty much national and larger regional breweries: Miller, Stroh’s, Bud, Old Style, etc. Fritzy had a sizable collection, though probably tiny compared to serious collectors, but I still remember him detailing all of the different chronological markers: dates for cone tops, church keys, pull tabs, etc. For historical archaeologists, collectors can be a gold mine of information on such things (e.g.).