Cal. Bottling Co. Export Beer S.F.

Cal. Bottling Co.

Export Beer S. F.

“The Survivor”

California Bottling Co., San Francisco, California

Beer Bottle Novelty

Provenance: Robert Maro Collection

This piece is affectionately called “The Survivor” by the consigner as the California Bottling Company Export Beer bottle was dug by experienced digger John Shuler and found impregnated and protected into what looks to be a rusted metal cog. Indeed, a gallery conversation piece that comes with a story.

A second bottle example shows embossed copy reading “Cal. Bottling Co. Export Beer S. F.”

The half-pint, pony-sized, 7 ½ inches tall, red-amber beer bottle is embossed from shoulder to base in three lines, ‘CAL. BOTTLING Co.’ (1st line, “o” is lower case), ‘EXPORT BEER’ (2nd line), and ‘S. F.’ (3rd line). The rounded tapered bottle has a smooth base, a squat lady’s leg neck, and a Baltimore Loop Seal.

Advertising trade card “Little Pop Special Brew XX Pale,” California Bottling Co., 1407-1417 Eddy St. San Francisco, Trade Mark Sole Agent John Wieland Brewery.

On March 1, 1888 the California Bottling Company announced that they had formed themselves into an incorporated company and had obtained the exclusive right and privilege of bottling and selling in the city and county of San Francisco and in the state of California, the celebrated Bottled Lager Beer manufactured by the renowned John Wieland Brewing Company. “Our increased facilities and peculiar privileges enable us to fill any and all orders for Bottled Lager Beer for home consumption or export use or whatsoever so magnitude with promptness and dispatch.”

John Wieland

John Wieland (October 6, 1829-January 3, 1885) was born in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, and emigrated to the United States in 1849 when he was twenty, eventually settling in the San Francisco area of California. In 1855, he founded (or bought into) the Philadelphia Brewery in San Francisco. After his death in 1885, the name was changed in 1887 to the John Wieland Brewery. In 1890, it became part of a ten-brewery British syndicate and remained open until prohibition. It reopened in 1934 but closed for good the same year.

Full-page advertisement for the Philadelphia Brewery in San Francisco. Hoelscher & Wieland, 1865 San Francisco City Directory

California Bottling Co.

On July 1, 1906, the San Francisco Call printed the following:

CALIFORNIA BOTTLING COMPANY TO BUILD ON ITS FORMER SITE. Shows Confidence in City’s Future by Erecting on South Side Larger Plant Than It Had Before, Building and Equipment to Cost $50,000. 

The California Bottling Company will erect at once a two-story frame building on its old site on Harrison street, between Eight and Ninth. The structure, which is to cost $50,000 with the equipment, is to be finished in sixty days. The plant will be larger than the old one, which was destroyed by the fire.

The new California Bottling Co. building illustration.

E. C. Kalben, president of the company, says the building will be well adapted to the needs of the bottling works, and it will be rushed to completion. Weinhardt’s Columbia beer from Portland will be handled by the company. The building is to cost $18,000, the stable $5000 and the equipment the remainder of the $50,000. The lot on which the building is to be erected is fifty feet on Harrison by 275 in depth. John & Zimmerman are the architects.

Primary Image: “The Survivor” was imaged by Alan DeMaison at the FOHBC Reno 2022 National Antique Bottle Convention mobile imaging station.

Support: Reference to Soda & Beer Bottles of North America, Tod von Mechow

Support: Reference to William Painter’s Baltimore Loop Seal by
Bill Lockhart, Tod von Mechow, Beau Schriever, David Whitten, Bill Lindsay, and Carol Serr

Join the FOHBC: The Virtual Museum is a project of the Federation of Historical Bottle Collectors (FOHBC). To become a member.