Fox Head "400" Beer Flat Top Can

Fox Head 400 Flat Top Can

This 12-ounce flat top can represents a defining mid-1960s transitional design produced after the G. Heileman Brewing Company acquired the Fox Head label. Positioned prominently near the top of the can is the "House of Heileman" ribbon set above a heraldic crest featuring a rampant fox framed by golden wheat sprigs. Anchoring the lower portion of the design is the script slogan, "Brewed only in Wisconsin with crystal pure spring water," maintaining the regional provenance and water-source messaging associated with the line during its production in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Fox Head "400" was introduced in September 1936 by the Fox Head Brewing Company of Waukesha, Wisconsin. Marketed as a premium lager, the brand was positioned around the natural purity of Wisconsin spring waters. During the 1940s and 1950s, Fox Head "400" expanded significantly, backed by widespread print advertising and promotional mascots. When Heileman acquired the brand in 1962, Fox Head "400" was folded into the company's regional portfolio, marketed under the unified "House of Heileman" family of beers.

The Fox Head brewing tradition originated in 1893 with the Waukesha Imperial Spring Brewing Company. The company persevered through Prohibition by pivoting to non-alcoholic malt beverages and near beer, later reorganizing and rising to become one of the state's largest producers outside Milwaukee. In La Crosse, G. Heileman Brewing Company had operated since its founding in 1858 by Gottlieb Heileman and John Gund. Beginning in the late 1950s and continuing through the 1960s, Heileman pursued an aggressive strategy of purchasing independent breweries and their trademark brands. Fox Head became one of the early acquisitions in this expansion campaign, shifting production to Heileman's facilities.

For breweriana collectors, this can serves as an important artifact of the 1960s brewery consolidation era. It documents the point at which long-standing independent Wisconsin labels were integrated into expanding multi-brand operations while still highlighting their original regional slogans and classic heraldry.