Beer tray, American Brewery

This metal tray features the bold letters and patriotic colors of Baltimore’s American Brewery. Used in bars and taverns to carry beverages, the metal tray also served as an advertisement of the brewery and its beer and ale. The phrase “Drink American Beer” decorates the sides of the tray.

The American Brewery building is one of Baltimore’s brewing landmarks. It was built in 1877 for brewer John Frederick Wiessner, one of many German immigrants who established breweries in the city in the nineteenth century. Weissner died in 1904 and his sons continued to operate the family’s independent brewery, J.F. Wiessner & Sons, at the site until 1920, when the enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment, which prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages, forced the brewery to close. In 1931, the American Malt Company purchased the historic building and began modernizing the plant. At the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, they began producing beer under the American Brewery, Inc. label. Strong competition from national brands forced the American Brewery to close in 1973.

This beer tray is part of a large collection of brewing material donated to the museum in 1967 by former brewmaster Walter Voigt, of Ruxton, Maryland, near Baltimore. Voigt’s collection consists of objects and archival materials reflecting the history of brewing in the mid-Atlantic region between 1870 and the beginnings of consolidation and large-scale, industrial production in the 1960s. His correspondence reveals an interest in preserving the history of brewing in America before brewmasters were “replaced by chemical engineers and highly trained chemists in modern laboratories.” Voigt’s papers are housed in the museum’s Archives Center, Collection #ACNMAH 1195, “Walter H. Voigt Brewing Industry Collection, 1935-1967.”

Currently not on view