Hopefully this is the right forum for a post like this, but I thought some of you might find this interesting. Earlier tonight my wife and I took a walk that took us past the long empty Iron City Brewing facility in Pittsburgh. While walking past some of the empty buildings I spied some cans inside of a doorway. The lighting wasn't great, but I stepped inside to snap a few pictures. There are a few of the leftover facade of some of the buildings, and a few of the cans I saw on top of an old piece of machinery. I've never heard of the brands displayed on the cans, and the style of can suggests that they're quite old. I didn't pick them up to explore as my wife didn't appreciate my curiosity as it was. I may go back to look to see if I can find any dates or locations of the breweries. Any info that any of you have would be appreciated as this experience has left me curious.
@jesskidden Spring's here; time for a field trip? (And a potential citation for trespassing?) Bring your hard hat.
Yeah, those mostly aren't Pittsburgh's brands - and they all date from the 1970s ("quite old" for some but not for others ). Being from that period which was also the heyday of Beer Can Collection, they're mostly the sorts of cans that are still available for 50ยข or 3/$1 at breweriana shows. It is curious what they're doing at the old brewery - but I recall a few other breweries that had can collections like that on display or just hanging out in offices, etc, you know "For research purposes". (Somewhere I've got a pic of Dick Yuengling, Sr. in his office and you can see cases of Ortlieb's behind him*.) And a mask, if not for Covid then just for the dust! (Looks like there's some asbestos in the mix to me! But as a factory worker, everything looked like asbestos, sometimes we were even right.) Around 1975 or so a buddy and I were driving around NE PA, buying and drinking the local beers, the ones that were left anyway, and cruised around the long-closed Neuweiler Brewing Co. We found cases and cases of empties under a loading dock and pulled out some nice labeled deposit bottles, from both Neuweiler and other breweries (since bars mixed all returnables together). Years later, I found a photo* from when they closed with guys dumping the beer on that same loading dock when the brewery closed (around 1968 IIRC). Perhaps the same trip, we drove around the recently close Horlacher brewery and there were labels just blowing around the grounds. Mostly BREW II labels, IIRC. Also a cool Horlacher decorated VW Bus, parked in back. * Damn, I can't find either picture in my files. I gotta get organized (again).
