Croak's Select Beer Hoodie

With Wisconsin’s illustrious, and lets face it, dysfunctional (but in a good way of course) history of drinking, its obvious there will undoubtedly be some focus for me on some of the old local beers and breweries of the past with Croak’s being the first to catch my attention.  I recreated this one from one of their classic bottle tops.

Below is some history courtesy of Rock County’s Historic Breweries, Bars and Saloons Page on FB….Cheers!

The Croak brewing tradition began when Frank and his cousin William Croak purchased Louis F. Knipp’s “City Brewery in 1903.  For the next 15 years they operated one of Janesville’s most successful breweries until the threat of prohibition forced them to shutter operations in 1918.  The brewery stood idle for the next 14 years but in the summer of 1932, Frank and William-knowing the end of prohibition was near, invested $25,000 ($500,000 in 2020 dollars) to modernize their brewery.  As soon as prohibition ended in 1933, the beer began flowing under their new name, the Bower City Beverage Company.  

 Sales were strong from 1933-1935, coming in at just under 10,000 barrels a year but by 1936, production fell to just over 5,000.  Compounding matters, William passed away unexpectedly in 1936.  Overwhelmed by the larger Milwaukee breweries, there was little Frank could do to stem the tide as the brewery's fortunes continued to decline.  The last keg of Croak’s Select rolled out of the brewery in the summer of 1939, ending an impressive 83 year run.  The closing was but one playing out all across the nation as a handful of behemoths led by Pabst, Schlitz, and Miller undercut the small market competition with massive quantities of cheap, masse produced beer shipped across America by rail and truck.