Esslinger's Premium Beer Quart

Esslinger's Premium Beer Quart Cone

Dating from the Internal Revenue Tax Paid (IRTP) era, this 32-ounce cone top quart represents one of Philadelphia’s most recognizable mid-century brewery packages. The can features Esslinger’s cheerful, winking waiter mascot striding across a vivid yellow ground, balancing a serving tray bearing two tumblers and a miniature flat top beer can. Bearing a 1938 copyright notice, this label execution is distinguished by that flat top can on the server's tray, contrasting with other production runs that depicted bottles or cone top cans in the waiter's hand. As a pre-1950s large-format package, it features the period-mandated tax statement along with the prominent "Contents 1 Quart" volume statement at the base.

Esslinger’s Premium Beer served as the flagship offering of the brewery, positioned to compete with both regional staples and incoming national brands. Central to its identity was the animated mascot, popularly known to consumers and collectors as the "Little Man" or "King Pin". Dressed in a red bellhop uniform accented with gold buttons and a matching pillbox cap, the character became a fixture of mid-Atlantic advertising. The mascot appeared across tavern corner signs, back-bar statues, promotional trays, and print campaigns throughout the 1930s and 1940s, conveying friendly hospitality and everyday drinkability.

The brewery traced its roots to 1868, when George Esslinger began commercial brewing in Philadelphia, eventually centering operations near Tenth and Callowhill Streets. Following Esslinger's death during Prohibition, the Brown brothers purchased the firm and readied the facility for the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. After Repeal, Esslinger’s modernized aggressively and earned distinction as the first brewery in Philadelphia to package beer in cans. The company persevered through wartime rationing and post-war consolidation as one of the storied "Philly Final Four" independent breweries, alongside Schmidt's, Gretz, and Ortlieb's, before selling to New York’s Jacob Ruppert Brewery in the 1960s.

Quart cone tops occupy a revered place in breweriana collecting because of their substantial dimensions and generous graphic canvas. This Esslinger's quart remains especially popular among collectors of brewery character trademarks and Pennsylvania brewing memorabilia, serving as an exceptional artifact of twentieth-century advertising art.