Found an old bottle opener...

It's funny, even here there is a discrepancy, not just the fact that 'Cinnabar' is incorrectly spelled on one of those. Two addresses here say it was on The Alameda one says on Cinnabar near The Alameda, sooo....I found one history site that says the Cinnabar St. address was administration and the brewery at what is now 1000 Lenzen Ave., part of which is now codos and J. Lohr Winery. I still don't necessarily believe everything l read -especially from way back...this bottle-stopper says "SF", but shows the San Jose facility.

 

Oh, yeah, all those sorts of discrepancies are pretty typical of pre-Pro era brewery info (esp. misspelling ). And, even a relatively small brewery like Fredericksburg, around 20-25k bbl/yr in the 1890s according to stats, often had numerous buildings (bottling shops, cooper shop, stables, etc) were spread over several city blocks.

And there was a Federal tax law that stated a tax-stamped barrel had to travel over public roads before it would be bottled even when the brewery did its own bottling, so that's why many breweries from that era still have town streets running between their building. (Even after the Feds changed the law and allowed bottling without a beer first being put in a barrel w/tax stamp, the piping often traveled over or under a public road).

The best way to determine the actual brewery site is to find a Sanborn Fire Map from the era in the local or nearby college library - if you're lucky, they sometimes have them on line. (A much larger facility at the time, but an example of a brewery in a Sanborn map can be found at Ballantine ale brewery and malt house - 1908)

Yeah, interesting. (Nice stopper, too). That might be because it dates from that era of the "British Brewing Syndicates" when investors from the UK were buying up area breweries and combining them into one financial entity, although the breweries seem to have continued under the same management with the same brands, etc. Many other major cities had those syndicates in the 1890-1900s (Detroit, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Louis, NYC (United States), etc. I'm not up on that history anymore, other than remembering it's really annoying - especially the rumors reported as fact in newspapers of the time.

The so-called San Francisco Breweries Company that Fredericksburg was part of was one of the largest British syndicates, and combined 10 Bay area breweries - besides the largest, Wieland, and Fred., there were also breweries in SF, Oakland, East Oakland and West Berkeley. Might be what that "SF" means on that porcelain stopper?

 

Here's a "snip" out of a cool old 1876 San Jose map - so, a few decades before the "San Fran. Syndicate" era we're discussing, and unfortunately not as detailed as a Sanborn map - when the brewery (highlighted) was still going under the name of the original founder, Gottfried "Fred." Krahenberg, (according to 100 Years of Brewing [1903]: "Fredericksburg Brewery...derives it name from its founder, Gottfried Krahenberg (generally called Fred. or Frederick by his friends)."



100 Years of Brewing also has a nice photo of the brewery in that period and one of Krahenberg, as well as noting that it was a steam beer brewery at that time. By the end of the 1870s (under Schramm & Schnabel ownership) they were brewing 8-10k bbl/yr - which was pretty big for the time in California. The brewery wouldn't convert to lager brewing until 1882 (only the second CA lager brewer at the time, they claim).

@SirBottlecap - Hey, sorry if some people aren't interested in the history of this brewery noted in the OP. I know from previous threads you're involved in the local brewery history and thought you'd be interested. I've been interested in it since I research Ballantine, and Falstaff - apparently - briefly brewed some of the Ballantine brands there before closing the San Jose soon after they bought the Ballantine brands - well, at least, if one believes Falstaff's labels (which tended to be inaccurate or out of date).

 

I concede, but l'm always a Devil's advocate and l know you can be, too, because shit-disturbing can be fun!
Funny thing is, l got the Lenzen St. (more specifically, 1000 Lenzen) info from a Falstaff collector's site.
Just for bonus fun, l've thrown in a map from my 2007 Thomas Guide (yep, still use one; picture taken with my 2008 slidey-open phone) of the area: Part of Cinnabar St (which by the way, is possibly the oldest official street in San Jose) has been partially replaced by Julian St. This picture is from a 1969 reissue of a 1892 map of San Jose that my wife rescued from a pile of books slated to be dumped: The unnamed street on the bottom is Lenzen. If all those buildings were part of the complex, then that was quite a place (and did come close to Lenzen, at least). The footnote (not seen here) says, "...now Falstaff". The ballpark across the way apparently hosted Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. I would imagine it was a busy day for the brewery that day!
Now, on both sides of the street, The Alameda is experiencing a revival of sorts and a few good beer spots, too! Check out the Draft Beer List at Wine Affairs...

 

Also, sorry, FieldGrade. I still want that opener.

 

E-8 Poor Condition
Cool find though. These are great to collect (and use). The hobby has led me into researching defunct breweries and mergers. Hotels put them out too, and most of those are also gone. I would say that the majority of these were put out in the mid-50s to mid-70s, but some do go back much farther than that.
Inexpensive hobby (if you resist the availability on e-bay--horrible idea of worth there). You can often find these things for a buck each at yard sales and flea markets. Two places that I always find them are random boxes of kitchen stuff (makes sense) and boxes of tools. Workingman's gotta stay refreshed I guess.

 

Lighten up man. It wasn't a judgement on you or what you pick up out of the dirt.

 

When my brother and I, in 1990, bought 614 Minor Ave., San Jose, built 1900, I was cutting a section of the kitchen wall out, for a new back door. Inside were two Weiland's cone top beer cans. One was near mint. The internet was only a year or two old at that point, but we did find it on some site. I put one can on ebay (1993 ?) and it sold for $70, not bad for 1993. I kept the other one. It's around here somewhere ! The way that house was built, the workers surely were drunk on Weilands, and I bet there's a ton of cans still in the walls of that house !

 

Cone top beer cans only existed from the mid-1930s up through the end of the 1950s - and since the Wieland brand apparently ended when Falstaff bought the brewery in 1952 (and, like many brewers, may have dropped the cone tops for regular "flat top" cans well before that), it would seem that the cans in the walls - a common place to find old beer cans, especially those in collectible conditions - would have come from repair/renovations rather than initial construction.