Tag Archives: homebrewing

“Dad! Get your truck! Mom found some beer stuff!”

Lately, my seven-year-old daughter has developed a genuine interest in home brewing. From helping to stir the mash to filling and capping bottles, she seems to enjoy the process as much as I do. What better way to spend quality time with your progeny?

It was with this enthusiasm that she came running down the street one March afternoon to alert me to a ground score that most home brewers would dream about.

Among the discarded household items left by a young neighborhood family moving to Arizona were four plastic five-gallon food-grade buckets for fermenting and bottling, one six-gallon glass carboy, one five-gallon glass carboy and two cases of bottles.

As if finding all this equipment wasn’t windfall enough, upon closer inspection of the bottles I discover that they aren’t just any ordinary beer container. These are 32 once “steinies” – twelve to a stout, divided cardboard carrier.

Steinies seem to have emerged shortly after the end of Prohibition. They made their first appearance in 1935. By early 1950s the steinie style went out of favor. Based on a just a short amount of research these bottles were probably produced between the 40s and 60s. This site has loads of interesting images and history of beer bottles.

The particular bottles now in my possession were once filled with Drewrys Extra Dry. Apparently union made with a “choice selection of fine grains and hops”.

A brand of Canadian beer going back to 1877, Drewrys was brewed for most of its history in South Bend, Indiana. Before the light beer “revolution” and eventual downfall of the republic Drewrys was known as the beer that was “less filling – more flavor – more fun!” In 1965, the South Bend plant merged with Associated brewing and then sold to Wisconsin-based G. Heileman who shut it down in 1972.

There is no telling what date in history these bottles might have been filled with beer or who might have emptied them. Were they discovered in the Ferndale house this family owned or were they passed to them by a relative? Did some forlorn old man sit in his kitchen and drink a bottle a night listening to the ball game on the radio or were they poured liberally at a backyard barbecue where everyone smoked Lucky Strikes and had strangely shaped eyeglasses? Whatever occurred did so before my birth. In a way I feel a kinship to these people though I can only conjure them in my mind.

Fact is this larger format is particularly suited to the home brewer who prefers a shorter bottling time and can easily drain two pints in a sitting while pining for an era and people he never knew.

In truth, as I write this I’m emptying a Drewrys steinie of homemade Michigan hard cider that my daughter helped to fill a couple weeks ago. Maybe she’ll want these bottles one day.