Ortlieb's A Fine Lager Beer 16 Oz Tab Top Can

Ortlieb's Try Joe's Beer 16 Oz Can

This drawn and ironed sixteen-ounce tab top represents a celebrated chapter in Philadelphia brewing history, hailing from the late 1970s. Produced as a tall-boy pint can, it features the red and gold oval Ortlieb's crest beneath the arched motto "Brewers By Birth Since 1869," anchored by the bold red promotional tagline "Try Joe's beer" across the bottom. Cataloged by its inclusion of metric volume indications alongside the absence of a zip code in the brewery address line, the container captures the packaging transition period when domestic brewers began adapting to dual-measurement labeling standards.

Ortlieb's established itself as an essential working-class staple across Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley. In the mid-1970s, facing fierce competition from multinational brewing corporations that were pushing regional labels off tavern taps, company head Joseph Ortlieb launched a memorable advertising blitz. Stepping in front of television cameras and radio microphones, Joe personally championed the product with the down-to-earth slogan, "Try Joe's Beer". His plainspoken, humorous pitches argued that while national conglomerates could outspend him, they could never match his family's localized brewing heritage. Joe famously resisted market fads, even poking fun at the low-calorie craze by suggesting patrons merely drop ice cubes into his regular beer. Ortlieb's sales peaked near the end of the decade before the brand was sold to Christian Schmidt Brewing Company in 1981.

The brewery traced its origins to Trupert Ortlieb, a Civil War veteran and Baden native who began brewing commercial beer in Philadelphia in 1869. Relocating to the city's historic Northern Liberties neighborhood, the enterprise later adopted the name of his eldest son, Henry F. Ortlieb. The brewery weathered Prohibition by producing non-alcoholic beverages and rapidly expanded upon Repeal, growing into one of the city's largest production facilities. Following decades of consolidation that felled nearly all neighboring competitors, Ortlieb's and Schmidt's endured as the final two operational breweries within the city limits through the 1970s.

For regional breweriana enthusiasts and Pennsylvania specialists, tall-boy cans bearing the "Try Joe's beer" moniker are treasured showpieces. The sixteen-ounce format highlights the bold, clean advertising graphics that defined Joe Ortlieb's spirited stand against national competitors. Minor differences in postal information and metric volume text also provide engaging depth for collectors studying late-twentieth-century canning variants.