Kato Lager Beer Cone Top Can

Mankato's Classic Kato Cone Top

This 12-ounce cone top container was manufactured during the pre-1950 era, featuring the mandatory "Internal Revenue Tax Paid" statutory statement along the lower red rim. Built with a flat bottom and a multi-piece body assembly, the can highlights Continental Can Company's "Cap Sealed" design alongside a prominent "Keg Flavor" marketing callout. The bold diagonal black sash across the silver body is accented by the distinctive red crest depicting a heraldic wyvern, accompanied by the Minnesota state permit marking near the upper rim.

Kato was introduced in 1933 as the primary brand of the newly reorganized Mankato Brewing Company following the repeal of Prohibition. Marketed heavily on the promise of delivering authentic tavern draft character directly into a convenient packaged format, the brand was a familiar sight across southern Minnesota. Kato Lager served as the brewery's workhorse label for decades, appearing across bottles and canned formats until the company's final years of operation.

The brewery itself carried a deep lineage in Mankato, Minnesota, tracing its heritage back to the William Bierbauer Brewing Company founded in the 1860s. The Bierbauer family operated a substantial regional facility on Rock Street before federal Prohibition brought brewing operations to a halt in 1920. Upon Repeal in 1933, local investors reorganized the plant as the Mankato Brewing Company. Following World War II, the brewery briefly sought expansion by acquiring regional facilities, such as the former Jordan brewery, but post-war economic headwinds and fierce competition from national mega-breweries eventually led the Mankato facility to close its doors permanently in 1967.

For collectors of Upper Midwest breweriana, this can is an iconic piece of Minnesota's mid-century brewing landscape. Flat-bottom cone tops bearing tax-paid wording from regional producers remain central cornerstones of historic cone top collections.