08/12/2026
🍺 A Toast to Breweriana 🍺
There was a time when the sign hanging behind the neighbourhood bar did more than advertise a beer. It glowed through a haze of conversation, watched over birthday celebrations and hockey games, and became as familiar as the person pouring the drinks.
Today, those signs—and the trays, steins, tap handles, bottles, cans, clocks, calendars and coasters that went with them—belong to a colourful collecting world known as breweriana.
Breweriana is the name given to advertising and promotional items produced by breweries and beer distributors. While beer has been brewed for centuries, many of the pieces collectors treasure today appeared during the late 1800s and throughout the 1900s, when breweries were competing to be remembered.
Long before television commercials and social media, breweries relied on objects people would see and use every day. Colourful serving trays travelled from table to table. Embossed metal signs hung in taverns and shops. Calendars remained on kitchen walls all year. Branded glasses, ashtrays, thermometers and clocks kept a brewery’s name in view long after the last glass had been poured. 🍻
Many early pieces were beautifully illustrated, with detailed artwork and bold lettering designed to catch the eye. They were advertising, certainly—but some were also little works of commercial art.
Prohibition changed everything. As breweries closed across North America, countless signs, trays, bottles and promotional pieces were discarded or destroyed. When legal brewing returned, the advertising returned too, this time with new materials, brighter colours and eventually illuminated signs and neon displays.
That history helps explain why older breweriana can be so desirable today. Pieces from long-forgotten local breweries may be especially difficult to find because they were produced in smaller numbers and rarely meant to survive for generations.
The wonderful thing about breweriana is its variety. One collector may search for rare pre-Prohibition signs, while another is perfectly happy collecting familiar beer glasses from the 1960s and ’70s. Some collect one brewery, one city or one type of item. Others simply buy whatever brings back a good story.
And breweriana is very popular. It has an active community of collectors, specialty clubs, conventions, auctions and shows. Rare beer cans and early advertising pieces can sell for thousands—and occasionally far more—but you do not need a foamy bank account to join the fun. Plenty of coasters, glasses, bottle openers and advertising pieces remain affordable. 😊
For many collectors, it is not really about the beer. It is about the graphics, the history and the places these objects once belonged. It might be the old sign from the neighbourhood pub, the tray your uncle used in the basement rec room or the stein that sat untouched on your grandparents’ shelf.
That is what breweriana preserves: not simply a brand, but a little piece of everyday life.
Do you remember a brewery sign, beer tray, bottle or stein that seemed to be everywhere when you were growing up? Tell us what it was—or come raise a glass to the past while browsing the shelves at Nana’s Antiques. You never know what old memory may be waiting to say “cheers.” 🍺✨
Nana’s Antiques
17633 57th Ave, Surrey
604.575.4897
We can not guarantee this will be in stock when you come in as our inventory changes daily.
