The Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company was a brewery in Newark, New Jersey founded by Gottfried Krueger and John Laible. Krueger had been brewing beer since the 1858. In 1934, the American Can Company approached the brewery with the idea of canning its beer and offered to install the equipment for free: If the beer flopped, Krueger Brewing Company wouldn’t have to pay.
So, on January 24, 1935, Krueger’s Cream Ale and Krueger’s Finest Beer were the first beers sold to the public in cans. Canned beer was an immediate success. The public loved it, giving it a 91 percent approval rating.
Now, the whole story of the first beer can:
The air in the Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company was thick with the scent of malted barley and the faint tang of yeast, but today, it carried something else—a nervous buzz. In the heart of the brewery, a cavernous brick building on Belmont Avenue, a small crowd gathered around a clanking, hissing machine that looked more like a contraption from a mad inventor’s workshop than a piece of brewing equipment. Gottfried Krueger, the brewery’s namesake, had passed away seven years earlier, but his sons, Gottfried C. and John F., stood at the helm, their faces a mix of skepticism and cautious hope.
The machine was a gift—or rather, a gamble—from the American Can Company. Its purpose? To stuff beer into tin cans, a notion that had the brewery’s old-timers chuckling into their mustaches. “Beer in a can?” muttered Hans, a grizzled brewmaster who’d been with Krueger since the days of wooden kegs. “It’ll taste like a tin roof and explode before anyone drinks it.”
But times were tough. Prohibition, repealed just months ago, had left Krueger limping. The brewery had survived by churning out near beer and soda, but the return of legal alcohol hadn’t brought the boom they’d hoped for. Worker strikes and the shadow of the Great Depression loomed large. When American Can’s salesmen arrived, promising to install their “keg-lined” canning line for free, it was an offer too good to refuse. If it flopped, Krueger owed nothing. If it worked… well, that was the question.
The canning line roared to life, and out came the first batch: 2,000 cans of Krueger’s Special Beer, a 3.2% ABV brew, the strongest allowed under the new Cullen-Harrison Act. The cans were sturdy, coated inside with a brewer’s pitch to keep the beer from tasting like metal, and sealed tight to withstand the fizz’s pressure. Each bore the Krueger logo and a bold claim: “The World’s First Canned Beer.”
Gottfried C., the more pragmatic of the brothers, handed a can to his younger sibling, John. “You first,” he said, half-smiling. John, always the bolder one, cracked the top with a church-key opener, the sharp hiss silencing the room. He took a tentative sip, then grinned. “Tastes like beer to me. Damn good beer.”
The cans were distributed to loyal Krueger drinkers—workers, friends, and a few brave locals. The brothers held their breath, waiting for feedback. Days later, the reports rolled in: 91% loved it. “Tastes like draft,” one drinker swore. “No bottle to return, no deposit to fuss with,” said another. Even Hans, the skeptic, admitted it wasn’t half bad.
Emboldened, the brothers planned a bigger leap. On January 24, 1935, they shipped 2,000 cans of Krueger’s Finest Beer and Krueger’s Cream Ale to Richmond, Virginia, the farthest corner of their distribution network. “If it fails,” Gottfried C. reasoned, “at least it’s far from Newark.” But failure wasn’t in the cards. Richmond’s beer drinkers snapped up the cans, marveling at their lightweight, stackable convenience. Within three months, 80% of Krueger’s distributors were clamoring for the canned stuff, and the brewery was buying 180,000 cans a day from American Can.
The success sent shockwaves through the industry. The “big three”—Anheuser-Busch, Pabst, and Schlitz—scrambled to catch up, their market share nibbled away by a regional upstart. By year’s end, over 200 million beer cans had been sold nationwide, and Krueger’s was at the forefront. The cans were a godsend during World War II, when brewers shipped millions to soldiers overseas, boosting morale with a taste of home.
Back in Newark, the Krueger brothers toasted their gamble in the brewery’s taproom, the clink of tin cans replacing the clatter of glass. Hans, now a convert, raised his can high. “To Gottfried, who’d have laughed at us for trying,” he said. The room erupted in cheers, but John leaned toward his brother, whispering, “And to the can, for saving us.”
The Gottfried Krueger Brewing Company didn’t just survive—it made history. Those first cans, born of desperation and daring, changed how the world drank beer, proving that sometimes, the boldest ideas come in the humblest packages.
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