LAST CALL - NJ HiRailers Schaefer Beer Special run Car

Just for fun I got my beer can collection down from the attic.  I think this is all my New York based brews.  Got all the names mentioned with a few more that you guys may remember.

My dad was a salesman and when he went on a road trip he would bring back some cans from the local breweries.  I can just see him now putting down a sixer in his hotel room so I could add to my collection.  What a guy.  He has a story of how he left a batch of cans on a table in a hotel room and went to breakfast.  When he came back the maid had taken them all away when she cleaned the room.  All that work for nothing!  Cheers.

Anyone here old enough to remember the Trommer's Brewery in Brooklyn? They were only one of just a few breweries at that time to have produced an all malt beer. I have a vivid sense memory of the aroma of hops cooking and the many stacks of barrels stacked in the Brewery yard. Sadly, they closed on 1951.

Tinplate Art posted:

Anyone here old enough to remember the Trommer's Brewery in Brooklyn? They were only one of just a few breweries at that time to have produced an all malt beer. I have a vivid sense memory of the aroma of hops cooking and the many stacks of barrels stacked in the Brewery yard. Sadly, they closed on 1951.

I wasn't even a twinkle in my fathers eye when Trommers went out of business.  They are a major part of New York beer history though.  During Prohibition they developed a Near beer that really wasnt a big seller.  What Trommers did was give loans to German immigrants to open hot dog stands   They financed almost 1000 hot dog stands  The only catch with the financing was that the hot dog stand can only sell Trommers Near beer  No other drinks available  How is that for marketing.  

Trommers had a restaurant, hotel, and beer garden connected to the Bushwick avenue brewery  They were a major player in New York beer.  They purchased a brewery in Orange New Jersey to keep up with the demand.

Their demise was caused by a 2 month long beer truck driver strike  An important part of an all malt beer is the yeast and Trommers had their own strain of yeast  The striking drivers blocked entry into the brewery during the strike  The yeast strain they had died due to no maintenance for two months  The new strain of yeast they developed after the strike produced a completely different taste that nobody liked.  Sales plummeted

The Trommers brewery in Orange New Jersey was purchased by Liebman ( Rheingold ) and the Bushwick avenue brewery was purchased by Piels

Again, just for fun, here are my Pittsburgh and Ohio cans.  The Iron City ‘75 Steelers is one of my favorites.  I was a big Jack Lambert fan back in the day.  Wore #58 in high school and college.  And of course, you gotta have a couple Olde Frothingslosh, the pale stale ale with the foam on the bottom.  I have about 300 cans still.  I’ve had them for more than 40 years.  Was kind of neat to take a look at them again.

Good luck with the car.  I really enjoyed learning the history behind it.  As always,  Cheers.

William 1 posted:

Just for fun I got my beer can collection down from the attic.  I think this is all my New York based brews.  Got all the names mentioned with a few more that you guys may remember.

My dad was a salesman and when he went on a road trip he would bring back some cans from the local breweries.  I can just see him now putting down a sixer in his hotel room so I could add to my collection.  What a guy.  He has a story of how he left a batch of cans on a table in a hotel room and went to breakfast.  When he came back the maid had taken them all away when she cleaned the room.  All that work for nothing!  Cheers.

Nice collection.  Love them.  It’s amazing how so many of these are mentioned here but the most interesting out of these is gablingers.  When you ask anybody what the worlds first light beer is you will probably get the answer Miller lite. That is partially correct.  Gablingers was the very first light beer. It was brewed by rheingold and marketed as diet beer.  Needless to say it didn’t sell well. After the demise of rheingold gablingers became meisterbrau light which in turn became Miller lite.  The marketing made the difference.  Right rodney

That’s cool.  Here is the back of the Gablinger’s can showing calories etc.  It says contains 99 calories. 1/3 less than our regular beers.  Forrest Brewing Co. New Bedford, Mass.

Veering slightly off track, this is my collection of Schmidt cans.  The Extra Special can says brewed and filled by Associated Brewing Co., the rest are G. Heilman, makers of Old Style, the beer I was weened on.  Schmidt, the beer that grew with the great northwest!  These were our favorites because of the cool nature scenes on them.  I don’t know how many different designs they made, but the musky can was the most coveted.  I have two pheasant cans and I think the plan was to trade one of those for a musky can.  Never got that far.  Started high school and the interest faded.

I used to set the whole collection up in a triangle stack in the basement.  The stack was probably about 5’ wide by 5’ high.  My best friend got a kick out of throwing a tennis ball at it and the whole pile would come crashing down in a cacophony of tin can can mayhem.  300 hundred cans could make quite a racket.  I can still hear that last can going ting, ting, ting at the end.  I’m thinking of setting them all up one more time just for the heck of it.  Ahh, memories...

Ok, time to put the cans away and get to work.  Need some beer money.

That was fun, cheers.

William 1 posted:

That’s cool.  Here is the back of the Gablinger’s can showing calories etc.  It says contains 99 calories. 1/3 less than our regular beers.  Forrest Brewing Co. New Bedford, Mass.

Rheingold was originally known as Liebman Brewing  It was run by the Liebman family along with some Jewish immigrants that fled the Nazi's.   They ran two breweries in the early 1960's  Bushwick Brooklyn and Orange New Jersey.  They were New York's number one beer controlling 35% of beer sales.  They couldn't compete with the National Breweries  In 1963 it was sold to Pepsi Cola  They changed the name of the breweries to Forest Brewing from Liebman Brewing.  Forest was selected because the Bushwick Brewery was on Forest Street.  They hired a guy named Joseph Owades as a Vice-President Technical Projects.  He developed Gablingers.  The marketing of it killed it as their ad campaign called it diet beer.  They were sued by some people that said they really weren't dietetic which led them to add the line on the front of the can "Not dietetic or Therapeutic"   This was one of the later cans   I have never seen the early ones.  Gablingers was originally brewed in Orange New Jersey.  Pepsi moved the  brewing of Gablingers to the Pepsi bottling plant in New Bedford Ma as a way to seperate it from Rheingold  The marketing never worked  They sold the formula to Meister Brau.  Meister Brau was another company in trouble and were purchased by Miller brewing which changed the name to Miller Lite with a great ad campaign  The rest is history  " Less Filling  Tastes Great "

The man on the can was a real person named Hersch Gablinger, a Swiss researcher who developed the technique for eliminating carbohydrates from beer.

The guy Joseph Owades also was the brewing consultant that worked for Boston Beer and developed Samuel Adams

My grandfather, Italian WWI hero who, among other things was a construction worker on the Chrysler building, always had an entire refrigerator filled with Rheingold beer whenever we visited.  He bought homemade red wine from some other Italian guy down the street.  Best I ever tasted.  I always got a glass of wine but never the beer (I was younger than 18).  I always assumed his taste in beer was as good as his taste in wine, so I have a very favorable non memory of Rheingold beer.  BigRail

And on that note, I'd like to preorder all four road numbers of the Rheingold beer reefer (hey, I can wish) when available.  Maybe one with an old ad emblazoned on it and another with Miss Rheingold and one with Mr. Met and one with a Brooklyn theme on it.  Ok, I'm in.  BigRail

Love the history.  Where would the world be without beer.  I shudder at the thought.  Had to have an Old Style.  What can I say, I was born thirsty.

Cheers.

BigRail posted:

And on that note, I'd like to preorder all four road numbers of the Rheingold beer reefer (hey, I can wish) when available.  Maybe one with an old ad emblazoned on it and another with Miss Rheingold and one with Mr. Met and one with a Brooklyn theme on it.  Ok, I'm in.  BigRail

Your reading our minds but you will never see a Mr Met one if I have my way  LOL

Ben: THANK YOU for the Trommer's history lesson! I was born in 1942 and we lived close to the intersection of Putnam Ave and Bushwick Ave. My earliest memory of Trommer's was probably around 1946-47, and that wonderful aroma of hops and those barrels with different color bands.

bluelinec4 posted:

BigRail posted:

And on that note, I'd like to preorder all four road numbers of the Rheingold beer reefer (hey, I can wish) when available.  Maybe one with an old ad emblazoned on it and another with Miss Rheingold and one with Mr. Met and one with a Brooklyn theme on it.  Ok, I'm in.  BigRail

Your reading our minds but you will never see a Mr Met one if I have my way  LOL

BOOOOOOOOOO

Yankees zuk 

The lovely Rheingold ladies that graced the fire trucks on which they were posed, along with the Dalmatians beside them are firmly  imprinted on my memory!

Joeceleb posted:

When I was a kid I remember going to my uncle's house and he was always drinking Schaefer beer.

Does anyone remember what NY team Schaefer sponsored? 

My guess would be the Brooklyn Dodgers and then the NY Mets. Rheingold was definitely the beer of the NY Yankees during my younger years.

And where does the Schaefer name come from?

TY all.

Joe

It was definitely the Brooklyn Dodgers. Their two major sponsors were Schaefer Beer and Lucky Strike cigarettes.

Being a White Sox fan, I remember Harry Carey lauding Falstaff beer.  Before he turned Cubbie.  (Boo)  My dad had plenty of Strohs, Red White and Blue, whatever was cheapest probably, in the basement fridge.  I remember the first beer I drank was out of that fridge. I’m pretty darn sure it was a bottle of Strohs.   I made my little brothers have a sip so they couldn’t squeal on me.  I finished that bottle and had another.  And the rest is history.  I like history.  This thread has brought back some memories.  Thanks for that.  It’s fun to reminisce.

BigRail posted:

And on that note, I'd like to preorder all four road numbers of the Rheingold beer reefer

You know NJHR has already done the Reingold TOFC car (in 4 road numbers).....???

I have three. If the price is right, I might part with one.

Gilly@N&W posted:

BigRail posted:

And on that note, I'd like to preorder all four road numbers of the Rheingold beer reefer

You know NJHR has already done the Reingold TOFC car (in 4 road numbers).....???

I have three. If the price is right, I might part with one.

I actually have two of them.  But I have reefer madness so however many numbers they do is what I will buy.  BigRail

Hello Everybody

The Schaeffer beer cars were published in the MTh newsletter yesterday   

We will be closing the ordering for these cars on May 28 as that is the drop dead date of ordes to be able to deliver these cars in time  So if you have been sitting on the fence thinking about them now is the time

ben