Schlitz Beer 12 Oz Tab Top Can

Schlitz Lehigh Valley Tall Can

This all-aluminum 12-ounce tab top can represents the late pull-tab era of the Jos. Schlitz Brewing Company. Featuring a tall can profile, it integrates packaging standards that became prominent across the beverage industry, including dual imperial and metric fluid markings (12 FL. OZ. / 355 mL) alongside a printed Universal Product Code (UPC). The face of the container highlights the signature angled red banner displaying the Schlitz script logo, set beneath the historic Schlitz world globe emblem and the slogan, "A Great American Beer Since 1849". The manufacturing text along the bottom rim identifies the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania facility among the brewery's production locations.

The Schlitz brand traces its lineage to 1849 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Positioned as a flagship American lager, Schlitz became an institution through powerful national advertising, immortalized by enduring slogans such as "The Beer That Made Milwaukee Famous" and "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer." By the mid-20th century, Schlitz was one of the largest and most recognizable beer brands in the nation, maintaining massive national volume before ownership transitions eventually brought the label under the Stroh Brewery Company and later the Pabst brewing portfolio.

The brewing company was originally founded by German immigrant August Krug, with bookkeeper Joseph Schlitz assuming management and renaming the enterprise following Krug's death in the 1850s. The company gained nationwide renown in the wake of the 1871 Great Chicago Fire by shipping thousands of barrels of beer to the stricken city. Schlitz successfully navigated Prohibition by producing malt syrups and near-beer, emerging to build a network of high-capacity regional breweries across the country, including the modern Lehigh Valley facility.

For breweriana enthusiasts, this can provides significant historical context as a marker of late-twentieth-century canning trends and multi-plant brewery distribution. Variations defined by regional city designations, mandatory metric labeling, and transitioning can dimensions make these later aluminum examples an important study in macrobrewery logistics and design evolution.