Century Lager Beer Cone Top Can

Trinidad's Century Lager Cone Top

Hailing from the late 1930s, this 12-ounce cone top container was manufactured by the Continental Can Company for the Ph. Schneider Brewing Company of Trinidad, Colorado. Marked with an Internal Revenue Tax Paid statement, it belongs firmly to the pre-World War II brewing era. This specific issue is distinguished by its concave bottom construction, a structural variation manufactured alongside flat-bottom versions of the period. The front panel is framed by sharp angular striping converging toward a circular emblem that depicts stylized grain sheaves resting just above the brewery's lower imprint.

Century Lager served as the premier flagship label for Schneider, positioned as an honest, dependable beer for local working communities across southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. Promoted through period advertising with the slogan promising "A Century in Every Bottle," the brand carried strong local loyalty. The label even entered national legal annals in the late 1930s through a landmark federal trademark dispute against the Century Distilling Company, in which Schneider successfully established that its beer brand could coexist with distilled spirits bearing the same name without causing consumer confusion.

Philip Schneider founded the brewery in the late 19th century in Trinidad, which was then a booming regional center for coal mining and railway transit. When Colorado enacted statewide prohibition in 1916—years prior to the Eighteenth Amendment—the brewery adapted by manufacturing non-alcoholic cereal beverages and soft drinks to keep its plant operational. When Prohibition ended in 1933, Schneider was issued federal permit COL-U-1001, making it one of only four pre-Prohibition Colorado breweries to successfully resume commercial brewing. Although it weathered the war years, intense postwar competition from national shipping brewers eroded its market, leading to ownership shifts before the Trinidad facility permanently ceased operations in 1957.

Among breweriana enthusiasts, cone top cans from independent Colorado breweries remain avidly sought after. Representing a historic mountain brewing outpost that fought to retain its regional identity and its trademark, this container is an essential centerpiece for collectors focused on Western brewing history and vintage cone top packaging.