Buy My Vintage Krueger Finest Beer Flat Top Can

I was not surprised to find out that the beer can found in my South Orange, NJ home was from a nearby Newark brewery. What did surprise me was that G Kreuger was the first brewery in the US to can their beer, as opposed to bottling it. And since my house was built in 1939 - I can assume that this can was from 1939 or earlier - since the old insulation my husband was removing from the floorboards was original to the house.

Due to the fact that the beer can had been inside our dry attic all these years, the can is in great condition. From the Beer Can Grading charts I have seen online, I would judge it to be Grade A1+.

Early Advertising for Krueger Brand Beer and Ale used the "K Man". This may have been the very first Beer Mascot.

G Krueger undertook a large marketing campaign to educate the public to the benefits of drinking beer from cans, as they were the very first brewery to introduce this in 1935.

Beer was first sold in cans in 1935. Prior to that, they wore sold in glass bottles which required a deposit and had to be returned. The fact that beer sold in cans was easily disposable was an attractive proposition to beer drinkers, which led to fast adoption of the new beer cans. It is also the reason why so many of these cans are being discovered by collectors. They were disposed of on camp grounds, basements, attics, and just about everywhere else. To be discovered later by vintage beer can collectors.

Opening Instructions
When the first flat top cans were released to the market, consumers were already familiar with cans for other food items. However, brewers wanted to make sure that consumers did not remove the entire top of the can in order to drink their beer, which would have been messy and troublesome. Instead, they created a new "can opener" for canned beverages and included Opening Instructions (OI) on their cans.

Here is a picture of the opening instructions on my Krueger Finest Beer Can:

IRTP Statement
Another characteristic of these flat top cans is the Tax Statement. From June 01, 1935 through March 30,1950 all beer cans were required to bear a statement about taxes paid. These statements, called "IRTP" looked something like this:

• Internal Revenue Tax Paid


• Tax Paid at the Rate Prescribed by Internal Revenue Law


• Tax Paid at the Rate Prescribed by Internal Revenue

The Statement "Internal Revenue Tax Paid" can be clearly read on the bottom of my can in the picture above.