Maier Select Beer Cone Top Can

Maier Select Beer Cone Top Can

This twelve-ounce high-profile cone top was produced for the Maier Brewing Company of Los Angeles, California during the Internal Revenue Tax Paid era. Manufactured as a Continental Can Company "Cap-Sealed" container, the can features a mandatory federal tax statement reading "Tax paid at rate prescribed by Internal Revenue Law" on its informational side panel. A dedicated descriptive box on the reverse touts the modern hermetic protection of the Cap-Sealed format alongside a reference to the brewery's heritage dating to 1875. Among known variations of this label design, this particular issue is distinguished by black text situated along the seam.

Maier Select served as one of the brewery’s enduring flagship labels. Originally introduced before Prohibition as Maier Select Pale, the brand was reintroduced following the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment as a premium, fully aged offering. Advertising and packaging copy consistently positioned it as a refined, mellow product of master brewers using scientific brewing standards, frequently punctuated by the slogan declaring Maier to be "the FAVORED beer." The brand remained an established fixture of the brewery’s lineup through multiple packaging transitions until the brewery’s final years.

The Maier Brewing Company traced its origins to 1875, when German immigrant Joseph Maier partnered with George Zobelein to run the Philadelphia Brewery in downtown Los Angeles. Following Maier's death, internal disputes led Zobelein to leave and establish the rival Los Angeles Brewing Company. The Maier family retained the original plant on North Main Street, navigating Prohibition through near-beer production, malt tonics, and occasional legal controversies. Following Repeal, Maier modernized its plant and embraced canning early on. In 1958, industrialist Paul Kalmanovitz acquired the facility, reorienting its output toward value brands like Brew 102 and contract private-label brewing before downtown Los Angeles operations finally ceased in the 1970s.

Cone top cans from Southern California breweries are cornerstone artifacts of West Coast breweriana. Because Maier was one of the central independent producers anchoring the Los Angeles brewing landscape across the mid-twentieth century, cans bearing its classic script and distinct seam text variations provide tangible documentation of California's competitive postwar beer market.