The Royce Files

The Back to the 50s swap meet of a few weeks ago has many remarkable finds. None of which I purchased. I don't have room for this stuff. But the internets do. So let's begin our tour. Here we find 2 bottles of Schmidt's City Club beer, a  Whistle Beverage bottle  of some kind (I believe it is a soft drink bottle but I could be wrong), and a goblet with the mark of Pabst Blue Ribbon  (of which one is already owned in my family). Brewed in St. Paul, City Club began its life as a near-beer during prohibition. Some of my ancestors lived in the shadow of the brewery that made it along the Mississippi River. It's still there but not sure if its being used for much brewing any more. In a previous signs of beer post I wrote more on Schmidt's. A few years after prohibition, 1936 to be exact, City Club became a full blow beer. Production of the label disappeared in the 1950s. Then in 1997 the then current owner of the label and Schmidt brewery, Stroh's, decided to re...

Last time we looked at Hamm's and this time we'll look at a rival beer brewed just a few miles away from the Hamm's brewery- Schmidt. I forgot where I discovered this sign, but I think that it was on Wabasha St S in St. Paul just before it collides with Ceasar Chavez St. Note the ghost sign that this Schmidt sign covers. I think it looks like Hamm's. Schmidt was brewed out West 7th Street, not far from where I spent the earlier years of my life. The brewery is sort of a landmark these days. Some of my relatives lived in the neighborhood behind it on the Mississippi river. My father claims beer used to be stored in the caves by the river. The beer is still around but it is brewed in Wisconsin.