Champagne Velvet Gold Label Beer Flat Top Can

Champagne Velvet Green Flat Top Can

Dating from the 1950s, this flat top can represents the green background version of Terre Haute Brewing Company's Champagne Velvet Gold Label series. Manufactured by the American Can Company, it features an all-steel, non-opening instruction construction. The label layout integrates the red-and-white "CV" circular emblem at the upper portion, arched brand lettering across a contoured white field, the central "Gold Label" designation, and a lower banner displaying the brand's long-running slogan, "The Beer with the Million Dollar Flavor". Along the bottom rim, the mandatory brewery text credits Terre Haute Brewing Company.

Champagne Velvet was originally formulated in 1902 by brewmaster Walter Braun and quickly developed into Indiana’s preeminent beer brand. Positioned as a crisp, premium lager, it built an enduring marketing identity around its famous "Million Dollar Flavor" catchphrase, a boast tracing back to an actual million-dollar insurance policy placed on the recipe. CV remained a pervasive Midwestern favorite through the mid-20th century. While industrial consolidation forced the original label out of circulation after the brewery's closing, the legacy of Champagne Velvet endured, later inspiring craft brewing revivals that returned the historic recipe to regional taps and packaging.

The Terre Haute Brewing Company traced its origin back to 1837 in Terre Haute, Indiana, evolving from a modest local enterprise into one of the largest brewing operations in the United States prior to Prohibition. At its peak around the turn of the century, the facility occupied multiple city blocks and shipped nationwide. During federal Prohibition, the operation stayed afloat by manufacturing cereal beverages, near beer, and soft drinks under the corporate name Terre Haute C.V. Company before resuming commercial beer production in the 1930s. However, fierce post-war competition from national mega-breweries squeezed the regional independent, culminating in the plant's closure in the late 1950s.

Among breweriana collectors, this can holds special significance as part of mid-century set packaging. Terre Haute released Champagne Velvet Gold Label cans across an array of different lithographed background colors to create an eye-catching display on store shelves. Tracking down and assembling the various colored versions from this series remains a timeless pursuit for flat top enthusiasts and collectors of Indiana brewing history.