Serious Eats
The History of Beer Cans
Photograph from Michigan Beer Buzz
Weburbanist rounds up photos of beer cans since the 1930s and shares the history behind beer can design. Although I'm a fan of this uber-generic design, there's an interesting reason behind the need to jazz up the cans:
After methods of packaging beer into durable cans were developed, the real treat for consumers and collectors were the colorful designs on the cans. Beer would still not taste great coming from a can for several decades. Manufacturers began releasing special edition and novelty cans with lively images and color schemes to attract consumers and compensate for the canned beer taste. Some of these early cans, if still in good condition, are now worth thousands of dollars to collectors.
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