Product Review

Sit back, pop a cold one, and let Gary Straub introduce you to the colorful world of beer tray collecting. With over 800 bright color photographs of different trays and an engaging text, the reader follows the rise and fall of the lithographed tin beer tray from its 1890s introduction, through its golden years, and eventual post-World War II decline. The fortunes of the breweries are charted in their trays through the boom years prior to 1920, the staggering losses of the Prohibition era, and the conservation during World War II. Discover the alternative materials used when tin was in short supply. Manufacturers of the trays, their artwork(often sold to more than one brewery) and their marks are described in detail. Breweries emblazoned on the trays include Ballantine, Bartels, Genessee, and Narragansett. The names of some of the brews themselves provide occasional surprises, like OLE MULE ALE and ANTRACITEBEER.