Hawkeye Beer 12 Oz Tab Top Can

Hawkeye Beer 1980 Tab Top Can

Issued in 1980, this straight steel twelve-ounce can features bold illustrative artwork created for college football enthusiasts. The design showcases a hawk mascot wearing a dark jersey with a bold letter emblem, raising a foaming mug of beer while perched atop a football. The artwork bears the printed signature of Steve DeBellis along the lower edge. In collector records, this release is documented with a stay top lid, though references to an unverified earlier tab top variation have also circulated.

Hawkeye Beer was conceived as a novelty brew aimed squarely at University of Iowa football fans and regional sports loyalists. Commissioned by promoter Steve DeBellis, the brand emerged during an era when commemorative sports cans were surging in popularity across the country. Produced alongside a companion release, Cyclone Beer, which targeted rival Iowa State supporters, Hawkeye Beer was marketed as an unlicensed tailgate novelty. Distributed primarily around game days and local retail outlets, the brand was a short-lived promotional effort tied directly to the 1980 collegiate football season.

The beer was produced and packaged in Dubuque, Iowa, by Jos. Pickett & Sons Brewing Company. The brewery originated in the late nineteenth century as the Dubuque Star Brewery, weathering Prohibition by manufacturing near beer before reopening after repeal. In 1970, former professional football player and seasoned brewmaster Joseph S. Pickett Sr. purchased the historic property with his sons. Pickett modernized the aging facility, brewing flagship brands such as Pickett’s Premium while taking on contract brewing and specialty commemorative cans for outside distributors. Pickett operated the plant until selling the business in 1980, after which the facility changed hands multiple times before closing.

Today, this can occupies an engaging crossover niche between vintage breweriana and college football memorabilia. It remains highly sought after by regional collectors focused on Iowa brewing heritage, contract brews of the late steel era, and collegiate sports memorabilia.