New England Ale, circa 1939. (USBC 103-8)

This may well be my single favorite can in my collection. The design is interesting, it's not a very common can, and I like New England if for no other reason than my wife is from there!

Commonwealth Brewing

Commonwealth Brewing was in some ways the heir of several breweries in the Springfield, Massachusetts area. In the late 19th century there were five breweries in the region. In Springfield there were Highland, Liberty and Springfield Brewing. Consumer’s was in Chicopee and Hampden was in Willimansett. In the 1890s a wave of consolidation swept through the brewing industry throughout much of the US. It reached Springfield as well and the area breweries all joined together to form the Springfield Breweries Company. Liberty Brewing did not join at first, but in 1910 joined the other four companies. The combined company had a large output, peaking at 350,000 barrels right before Prohibition hit locally in 1918.

 

"Who Wants the Handsome Waiter?" a popular pre-prohibition tray from Springfield. The same images was used by a Canadian brewery. It was popular not only on trays but on ads and other breweriana.

When the dry years began they attempted, like many other breweries around the US, to market soft drinks. They didn’t sell well enough however, and by 1924 only Hampden was left selling malt extract, near beer (and probably some illegal real beer as well, New England, outside of Maine, was never a very dry territory.

After Prohibition Hampden Brewery went its own way and stayed open through several changes in ownership and names until 1975. The former Springfield Brewing plant was the only other part of the former Springfield Breweries Company to open after Prohibition. Purchased by a Leo Kaufman, it opened as the Commonwealth Brewing Company in 1933. Commonwealth was apparently never far from the danger of going out of business. It survived week to week often getting payment from distributors in order to meet the next week’s expenses. A friend who retired from the ATF (and who is a longtime beer can collector) told me that Commonwealth also had tax problems with the federal government more than once.

Despite their precarious financial condition, they were early converts to canning beer, signing a contact with the smallest of the companies producing cans, National Can Company. Commonwealth canned New England Ale starting in about mid-1935 and added Bay State Ale and Beer in 1936. They also canned New England Beer for a short time. All of Commonwealth’s cans are fairly tough, but the New England Beer is especially rare. There are only about 7 or 8 known, including one very rough six-pack dug in Maine, and a single example that was not filled with beer. The New England Ale I have as my COM is probably the most common can from Commonwealth, but it’s still a hard can to find in really good condition.

Commonwealth struggled along until 1945, then became Springfield Brewing again from 1946-1948. They finally closed in 1948, unable to compete with larger, better financed breweries.

Dr Suess And Commonwealth

Yes, there is a tie between the two! “Dr. Seuss’s” real name was Theodor Geisel. He was born in 1904 in Springfield, Massachusetts. His father, Theodor Robert, and grandfather were both brewmasters in the city. The family business was a brewery, Kalmbach and Geisel (1875-1894). In 1894 it was renamed the Highland Brewery. In 1899 it became part of the combined company, Springfield Breweries. In 1919 Geisel became President of Springfield Breweries, just before Prohibition closed the company down.

Seuss used to make fun of moral crusaders in his books and his editorial cartoons. (opens new window) One such character was Arabelle Godiva in “Horton Hears a Who.” Dr Seuss also did artwork for advertisements and did work for several breweries, creating ads for Schaefer in New York City and for Narragansett in Rhode Island. I have a Dr Seuss tray from Narragansett in my collection.

A Dr Seuss cartoon from 1942, attacking the "drys" who wanted to use the Second World War as an excuse to reinstate Prohibition.  Cartoon from The Dr. Seuss Collection in the Mandeville Special Collections Library at the University of California, San Diego

Name Changes

Shaw & Co. 1860-1877
Wallace Shaw 1877-1880
G. Rothfuss 1880-1882
Max Lutz 1882-1890
Springfield Brewing Company 1890-1899
Springfield Breweries Company 1899-1918
Commonwealth Brewing 1933-1945
Springfield Brewing 1946-1948

Sources Used

Anderson, Will. Beer: New England (Portland, Maine, 1988)

Nel, Philip. Dr. Seuss: American Icon (New York: Continuum, 2004)

Van Wieren, Dale P. American Breweries II. (West Point, PA., East Coast Breweriana Association, 1995)