Huron County Brewing Label

Mark W. Rummel posted this photo on December 29, 2014 in the Facebook Group “You know you are from Sebewaing, MI when …”. He said:

“Let’s start the final Monday of 2014 with a mystery — what was “Export Beer” made by the Huron County Brewing Company of Sebewaing?

Our local resident Sebewaing Beer expert Scott Thede will probably know for sure, but this “Export Beer” brand is unusual, to say the least. I’ve seen this label before, and believe it’s from the late 1930s (after Prohibition ended.) It looks like they were trying to make a premium beer (so they could sell it for more, I expect.)

First, an eBay seller will send you a T-shirt with this label, if you’d like one. That’s how we found it today.

Second, why didn’t they call it the Sebewaing Brewing Company? What do the HKBCC (initials) stand for? Does the “K” mean the beer was Kosher?

I love the line “Pure Without Drugs or Poison.” (that’s a classic.) I always try to drink beer without drugs or poison, hehe…

And what’s the idea with the Squirrel mascot??? Geese and Pheasants, yes. But Squirrels?? We never saw it before, or after…

It’s a Sebewaing mystery for sure… as we near the end of 2014.”

“Scott M. Thede posted this response on December 29, 2014 in the Facebook Group “You know you are from Sebewaing, MI when …”. He said:

This is a new post related to Mark’s Huron County Brewing Co beer label mystery questions. I wanted to post multiple photos and can’t seem to do it on a post reply thread.

I have very little information between November 11, 1905 to April 30, 1918. These dates are significant for this label. For the little I do have, first, there was a banquet announced for retail liquor dealers in the Saginaw News on 11/11/05 and that banquet took place on 12/5/05. The banquet was hosted and paid for by the Huron County Brewing Company (HCBC). That sort of gives us a start date to the HCBC timeline. The second date of 4/30/18 is significant since that is when Michigan went dry. Many of us have seen the bottles with painted labeling of the HCBC like the photo I have included. According to “US Beer Labels” Vol 3 by Bob Kay, the paper label is coded “pp” and that stands for pre-prohibition. The paper label was perhaps a more inexpensive bottle packaging method. Since the goose in flight did not come out until 1934 for Old Style and the lion 1939-1940, and the pheasant in the late 1940’s, the squirrel must have been used for a trademark symbol for the HCBC. Similar labels for the Dehring Brewing Company out of Alpena and the Fitger Brewing Company out of Duluth have items like a Whitetail Buck and a ship respectively. Probably these breweries used the same label printing company. There are similar labels for Bock and Christmas Special used across many breweries as early labels of Sebewaing as well. I believe the uniqueness in the label design started for our brewery with Old Style on and the only exception being Brewers’ Best. The letters HCBC on our label must stand for Huron County Brewing Company. Not sure what the K represents.

Great questions Mark! Thanks for the post.”

Here are the comments from the post:

Steve Lenz Very interesting thanks

Scott M. Thede You are welcome Steve!

Mark W Rummel Wow, Scott, yes — fascinating. It sure looks like the same label printer to me, too. And it looks like several regional brewers all decided to make a premium beer they all named “Export Beer” perhaps from a similar recipe. I think Sebewaing was trying to appear bigger than just a little town brewery. Interesting this was more than 100 years ago, and pre-prohibition.

William Harder Scott M. Thede there are three different huron county bottles was wondering about which one was for pop