Jax Beer: The Drink of Friendship

[billy]

Would Jacks Beer be a copyright infringement?
What if your name were Jack?

[Brian Siebenschuh]

I believe Liquor Group is strictly a distributor of, well, liquor.  They are based out of Jacksonville.  If they're purchasing the space, my guess would be it's planned for warehousing and distribution only, not for brewing or producing anything.

[billy]

I'm glad the building is being maintained and used.

[thelakelander]

There is an article about the Liquor Group in today's TU.

To accommodate its growth, Liquor Group last fall moved its Florida operations into a 235,000-square-foot warehouse on Jacksonville’s Westside, which is 10 times larger than its previous facility.

“Our intention is to turn this into the alcohol hub of North Florida,” Eiras said.

http://jacksonville.com/business/2011-02-04/story/jacksonville-based-liquor-group-bucks-system-and-gets-edge

[ruckoo]

i just found a can of beer call RHEIN KING. on the bottom of the can it reads, brewed & packed by Jax Ice & Cold Storage, Jacksonville, Fl . does anybody have any information on this can?

[thelakelander]

Here's a link to the info Stephen listed: http://www.taverntrove.com/brewery.php?BreweryId=758

[thelakelander]

Most of the buildings in that image, still stand today.  That would be a pretty cool building to explore.

[ronchamblin]

I distinctly remember drinking Jax Beer as a teenager.  I remember when it disappeared from the shelves.  I turned 14 in April of 1956, so I must have caught the last several months of its production.  For me, at that age, all beer tasted good.  I remember that Jax was cheaper than Schlitze and others.  As little rascals, we would buy beer from two little "Jew Stores" as we called them.  One was on Edgewood Ave, on the west side of the road, about three blocks north of Post.  The other was in an area called Sweetwater, being on the  southwest corner of Wilson and Firestone Road.

This was before any of the 7-Elevens.  These little stores were similar, but smaller than what we called general country stores in those days.  By size, I mean only 15 feet wide and about 30 feet deep.  The people looked to be from the Middle East, and I suspect that the families running those two stores were related.  We would ride our bikes to these stores, and they would sell us a sixpack.  As we turned 16, we would of course, drive our autos to these wonderful suppliers of our much desired beer.  That was the early rock years..... Elvis, the Everly Brothers .... 

The cans then were steel, not aluminum, and we would open them with the churchkey, a large hole on one side, a small hole for air on the other.  The pull tab began to appear in the mid-sixties if my memory is correct.  I recall that the first pull tab cans were steel, and were tricky, causing the occasional finger cut.         

[Ocklawaha]

Ron, as one who would go barefoot to a wedding, I remember those stupid early pop tops. The youngsters here probably don't know but those pop tops pulled all the way off after being contorted into some wicked shape. Barefoot crackers beware! Some of these nasty little things were the rocket sauce version of the storied Misericordia.

Being a few years behind you I remember Sweetwater too... Wow memories. Seem's like my horse crazy sister had some horses out there... Um 'Silver Spurs...?' I don't remember but it was quite a club. This is also near the place where I rescued a starving quarter horse, credit due, the guy gave it away and it was in bad shape. Within a day or two it discovered the sound of the feed pail meant FOOD! That old boy would charge out of the back pasture faster then Sea Biscuit. Don-D would not stop until he was inside a stall in an old barn that had a door that was way to low. One day my crazy nephew decided to ride to the back of the pasture at feeding time..."I can handle any horse!" Yeah, I warned him!  Suddenly they came flying out of a pine thicket. My nephew got peeled off that damned horse just like one of those pop tops. He wasn't seriously injured and we laugh about that to this day.

I would love to see one of the new microbreweries pick up the name and logo of the old Jax Beer. The rights probably belong to Pabst Brewing. Pabst bought Pearl, Pearl bought Jackson, Jackson bought Jax Beer. Sure would be cool to bring it home.

OCKLAWAHA

[ronchamblin]

Right Ock.  You jogged my memory on those early pull tabs. They were steel, thicker than the current aluminum, and you would pull them back toward you, sort of wrapping them around your finger.  The occasional finger cut would come as you encountered the occasional tab that had not been groove weakened enough during can manufacture. 

I encountered my first pull tabs as we were flying out of Midway Island during the early sixties.  By the way, while on crew rest on Oahu for two weeks of every month, we would buy on the base a case of beer for $2.70.  That's about 11 cents a beer.  But of course, the minimum wage then was around $1.00 / hour.  And I think the beer might have been what they called 3.2 beer.     

[avs]

We have a Jax Beer, the drink of friendship metal sign in our backyard and always wondered the history of the beer.  I will try to take a pic and post it, it is orange and blue

[Ocklawaha]

Here's the collection of Jax Commercials.


http://www.youtube.com/v/36WXE5rW0dA?version=3&hl=en_US

http://www.youtube.com/v/VkcdU4gxU38?version=3&hl=en_US

http://www.youtube.com/v/SrYPKdwfQ6M?version=3&hl=en_US

[ben says]

Amazing stuff

[JAX BEER]

Hello Ocklawaha
Glad to see you enjoy my post of these jax beer commercials on you tube, I have several others from this collection but only posted these three for reasons. They are from the Jackson Brewery NOLA collection. You can visit my FB site and enjoy the world of Jax beer.
Thanks again,
Jax Beer
Preserving the history of Jax beer for future generations.

[BridgeTroll]

For nostalgic viewing pleasure only...