Schmidt's Select Cer. Bev. Cone Top Can

Schmidt's Select Cereal Beverage Can

Packaged in a 12-ounce high-profile cone top format, this Schmidt's Select can represents a distinctive mid-century packaging format for a non-alcoholic cereal beverage. The front of the can prominently designates the contents as "A Cereal Beverage" beneath a central oval containing the brand name and the Jacob Schmidt Brewing Company star insignia. Unlike standard malt liquor or lager cans of the era, this cereal beverage designation signified a formulation containing less than one-half of one percent alcohol by volume, exempting the beverage from standard federal excise taxes on fermented malt liquor.

The Select brand originated out of necessity during national Prohibition, when the Jacob Schmidt Brewing Company reformulated its brewing operations to market de-alcoholized near beers, tonics, and cereal beverages to remain open. While many breweries abandoned their temperance portfolios following the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment, Schmidt maintained the Select brand for consumers seeking low-alcohol malt alternatives. Marketed alongside the company's flagship City Club label, Schmidt's Select offered consumers a traditional malt-based beverage without the intoxicating strength, persisting as a niche product into the postwar canning boom before eventually disappearing from distribution.

The Jacob Schmidt Brewing Company was founded in St. Paul, Minnesota, by Bavarian immigrant Jacob Schmidt, who took over the historic Cave Brewery property on West 7th Street around the turn of the twentieth century. Schmidt developed the facility into a regional brewing powerhouse, recognized for its stone cellars and imposing, castle-like brewhouse. During Prohibition, the brewery aggressively marketed near beer and malt products, enabling the business to survive intact and resume full-scale brewing immediately in 1933. Schmidt remained an iconic Minnesota fixture until 1954, when it was acquired by the Pfeiffer Brewing Company, later becoming part of Associated Brewing and eventually G. Heileman.

Cone top cans produced specifically for cereal beverages occupy a specialized niche within breweriana collecting. Because production runs for non-alcoholic malt beverages were significantly smaller than those for mainstream lagers, these cans serve as fascinating artifacts that connect Prohibition-era product lineage with mid-century metal packaging history.