Bean And Bacon Days Premium Beer 12 Oz Tab Top Can

Augusta Bean & Bacon Days 1979 Can

The 1979 Bean and Bacon Days Premium Beer can is a straight steel, 12-ounce tab top container issued as a regional commemorative release. The label features bold late-1970s typography, prominently showcasing the year "1979" alongside "Bean & Bacon Days" in rounded, puffy lettering set against a circular backdrop. The central graphic portrays an Old West chuck wagon beside two seated frontiersmen resting and drinking around a campfire, with "AUGUSTA, WISCONSIN" arched across the upper rim and "Premium Beer" scripted along the base.

The brand was introduced specifically for the civic Bean and Bacon Days festival in Augusta, Wisconsin. Augusta gained regional recognition as an agricultural packaging center and the home of the Bush Brothers & Company canning operation. Spurred by community momentum following the 1976 Bicentennial, local organizers established the town's Bean and Bacon Days festival in the late 1970s. To promote the celebration and supply festival-goers and local taverns with souvenir merchandise, event organizers arranged for custom commemorative canned beer runs.

The beer was brewed and filled by the Walter Brewing Company of Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Founded in Eau Claire in 1890 by German immigrant Johannes Walter, the facility became part of a prominent brewing family network spanning Wisconsin and Colorado. After weathering Prohibition by producing soft drinks and near beer, the Eau Claire plant resumed brewing in 1933 and built a loyal regional following under the long-standing slogan "The Beer that IS Beer". By the 1970s, intense competition from national macro-brewers placed heavy pressure on independent regional operations. Walter kept its packaging lines active in part by contracting small-batch commemorative and private-label cans for regional organizations, festivals, and municipalities. The Walter plant was eventually sold in the mid-1980s before shutting down permanently.

Within the hobby, the can holds strong appeal for collectors of Wisconsin breweriana and commemorative festival cans. It highlights the late straight-steel tab top era, representing a distinctive chapter of Chippewa Valley brewing history when small-town community gatherings partnered directly with local independent breweries.