Gb Premium Pale Lager Beer Flat Top Can

Grace Bros. GB Pale Lager Flat Top

This 12-ounce flat top beer can represents a mid-twentieth-century offering for GB Premium Pale Lager Beer, produced by the Grace Bros. Brewing Company of Santa Rosa, California. The design features a metallic gold background framed by a large stylized horseshoe with flanking stalks of grain. At the center, a split blue and gold oval showcases the flowing, cursive "GB" monogram. Perched at the crest of the horseshoe is the company's trademark "Happy Hops" mascot—a cheerful cartoon character raising a beer glass inside a mini-horseshoe emblem. The bottom portion of the face displays "BEER" in bold block lettering, followed by "Premium Pale Lager" in dark script and the 12 fluid ounce declaration along the bottom edge, complemented by mandatory brewery statements printed in blue.

Grace Bros. introduced and registered the "Happy Hops" persona in the 1940s, integrating the character across its advertising campaigns and can designs. The GB line served as the company's flagship pale lager, marketed across Northern California as a crisp, dependable hometown beverage supported by local agricultural resources.

The roots of the brewery date back to 1897, when brothers Joseph T. and Frank P. Grace acquired the existing brewery site on Second Street in downtown Santa Rosa. The company established extensive local agricultural ties in Sonoma County, operating its own commercial malting division and cultivating hops along the Russian River basin. During Prohibition, Grace Bros. successfully adapted by turning its facilities to ice manufacturing, cold storage, and grain processing. Following the Repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the brewery resumed production, becoming a prominent regional producer. Facing severe price pressure and consolidation from national macrobrewers in the postwar era, the plant eventually changed hands in the late 1960s before closing permanently.

For breweriana enthusiasts, this can stands as a celebrated artifact of California's independent regional brewing heritage. Cans showcasing the beloved Happy Hops mascot remain especially popular among West Coast collectors seeking mid-century label art from historic Sonoma County.