Waldorf Ale Flat Top Can

Waldorf Ale Long Opener Flat Top

This 12-ounce flat top container dates to the late 1930s and features instructional text along the side panel. Early canned beer packaging required consumer guidance on using a churchkey opener, and this container features the full-length "long opener" instructional diagram provided by the American Can Company. In breweriana literature, this design is cataloged as entry 851 in standard reference guides dedicated to opening instruction cans.

Forest City Brewery produced Waldorf Ale following the repeal of Prohibition, positioning the beverage as a traditional, premium offering. Prominently labeled with the slogan "Champagne of Ale," the brand used historical tavern imagery to project age, heritage, and craftsmanship. The lower illustration depicts a four-horse team pulling a passenger coach past a post sign reading "Ye Old Waldorf Ale" alongside a foaming tankard. The Waldorf name spanned several styles within the company's catalog, including lagers and bock, before being phased out in the 1940s.

Forest City Brewery was founded in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1904 on Union Avenue. Known as the Forest City Brewing Company in its early years, the business weathered national Prohibition by reorganizing as the Forest City New Process Company to produce near-beer and cereal beverages. Following Repeal in 1933, the operation resumed commercial brewing as Forest City Brewery, Inc., quickly modernizing and becoming an early adopter of the flat top can format. The independent brewery operated through the Depression years until the mid-1940s, when the facility was sold to the Brewing Corporation of America (later Carling) to expand local production capacity.

Among collectors, pre-World War II cans carrying extended "long opener" panels are historically significant artifacts representing the earliest era of canned beer marketing. The combination of mid-1930s can-opening history, gothic lettering, and detailed coaching scene artwork makes this can an enduring highlight of Ohio brewing history.