Red Top Extra Dry Beer Flat Top Can

Red Top Card Suits Flat Top

Dating to the mid-1950s, this 12-ounce flat top can is part of a distinctive pictorial series issued by the Red Top Brewing Company. Set against a rich blue background, the can is decorated with patterned playing card suits—including spades, clubs, and polka-dot hearts—arranged around a central cream-and-gold crest. Above the bold red "Redtop" lettering sits the company's trademark spinning top emblem wrapped in a banner proclaiming "EXTRA DRY," underlined by the word "BEER" in metallic gold.

Red Top was positioned and marketed as "America's First Extra Dry" beer, appealing to mid-century American tastes shifting toward lighter, crisper lager profiles. The spinning top icon served as an instantly identifiable symbol across Midwestern retail markets and advertising campaigns. Red Top invested heavily in sports promotions, notably sponsoring Cincinnati Reds baseball broadcasts and enlisting former New York Yankees standout Tommy Henrich as a company executive and brand representative. Despite these efforts, mounting pressure from expanding national mega-breweries led to the brand's eventual discontinuation.

The brewery traces its roots to 1904, when Louis Ullman and Edgar Mack Jr. founded the Red Top Malting Company in Cincinnati, Ohio. The operation expanded significantly during Prohibition by supplying malt syrup and non-alcoholic beverages, operating out of the leased former John Hauck Brewing Company complex on Dayton Street. Upon the Repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the business reorganized into the Red Top Brewing Company and began commercial brewing in the historic Hauck facility. The company grew into one of Ohio's largest beer producers, even acquiring the nearby Clyffside Brewing Company in the 1940s, before widespread industry consolidation forced the plant to permanently close in 1956.

For breweriana collectors, mid-century graphic set cans represent a creative high point in post-war beer packaging. The playful card suits design showcases the imaginative marketing approaches utilized by regional breweries to stand out on store shelves, making it a prized piece of Queen City brewing heritage.