Alps Brau Bavarian Style Premium Beer Flat Top Can

Old Crown's Alps Brau Flat Top

This 12-ounce flat top can dates to the early 1960s and was manufactured by the American Can Company using its trademark Keglined process. Highlighted by crisp mid-century graphic design, the face of the can features a snow-capped peak integrated into a stylized capital letter "A," flanked by alpine evergreens, a mountain lake, and a ski gondola line ascending the slopes. The composition includes the slogans "FROM MOUNTAIN VALLEY HOPS" stamped along the upper silver rim and "COOL • CRISP • CLEAR" running across the bottom band. Within collector records, this specific issue is distinguished by the wording of its mandatory text, notably lacking the standard "BREWED AND PACKED BY" statement that appears on alternative pressings.

The Alps Brau brand was launched in 1957 by Fort Wayne’s Centlivre Brewing Company to commemorate the firm's 95th anniversary. Marketed as a Bavarian-style premium beer, it quickly emerged as one of the facility's most popular labels. The launch was propelled by heavy promotional fanfare and memorable radio jingles performed by regional musical favorites Nancy Lee & the Hilltoppers, who sang that it was "Very Bavarian, Very Bavarian, Very Bavarian Beer". Following the shutdown of the Fort Wayne facility in 1973, rights to the label passed to Chicago’s Peter Hand Brewing Company, which produced Alps Brau into the late 1970s.

The brewery’s roots trace back to 1862, when French immigrant and cooper Charles L. Centlivre founded the French Brewery along Spy Run Avenue in Fort Wayne, Indiana. After a catastrophic fire in 1889 leveled the original structures, the plant was rebuilt and operated for decades by the Centlivre and Reuss families. During Prohibition, the enterprise adapted by operating as the Centlivre Ice & Cold Storage Company and manufacturing near-beer. In the early 1960s, following financial reorganization and a brief merger with Chris-Craft Industries, the facility was purchased by its workforce and renamed the Old Crown Brewing Corporation after its primary flagship product. Despite employee ownership and the addition of labels acquired from other shuttered regional breweries, intense market pressure from nationwide competitors finally brought brewing operations to an end in December 1973.

For breweriana collectors, this flat top can remains a standout centerpiece of mid-century Indiana brewing heritage. It is sought after both for its evocative alpine imagery and for the textual quirks that distinguish regional canning runs.