The beer bag lady

By Lew Cady

Once upon a time, according to Marcia Butterbaugh, beer didnât come in six-packs or 12-packs. "So when your grandpa bought bottles of beer to bring home, the bar or liquor store would use a paper bag to make them easy to carry. Gramps usually reused the bag to bring back his empties. These beer bags were provided by breweries and bore beer names, logos, slogans and the like."

Marcia ought to know. The Kansas City beer lover has one of the two biggest collections of beer bags --190 bags, all different. Gary Brinkmeyer of Charleston, IL, has the other.

Marcia has been a beer bag lady for years, haunting flea markets in her quest for yet another beer bag. "Flea markets are where Iâve found most of them," she says. "They usually cost about two bucks each. The most Iâve paid for one is $25. That was a Capitol."

Beer bags were produced in several sizes. Some were designed for carrying six bottles, some for 12, some for quarts. Most were made pre-Prohibition, but a few were produced after the repeal. And some of the latest ones were even made to carry cans.

The advent of the six-pack carrier put an end to the need for beer bags. "My guess is the last beer bags were produced in the mid-1930s," Marcia says.

Not all breweries bothered to make bags, but brewers in the St. Louis area, especially Falstaff and Hyde Park, were prolific suppliers. "Iâve got maybe 10 different Hyde Parks and probably 20 different Falstaffs," she says. "And surprisingly enough, only four or five different beer bags from Anheuser- Busch."

Beer bags were, basically, shopping bags with beer advertising on them. They came in white or manila with two different kinds of handles. Rope handles-which came in various colors. And so-called continental handles which were wide, flat paper strips glued to the outside of the bag. If the bag was stapled, it was an early model; the later ones were glued.

Printing was one- or two-color, and thatâs the best part of most beer bags; they often had terrific graphics and wonderful slogans that werenât used elsewhere.

Hyde Park: "Seldom Equaled-Never Excelled."

Budweiser: "The Table Beer of America."

Kingsbury: "Aristocrat of Beer."

And if you ordered a couple of bottles of each? That, of course, would be a mixed bag.