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Hopped Up About History

PHOTO CREDIT: Greg Carr

Mike Zane of Valrico holds one of the 150 beer cans in his collection. All of the cans came from Florida breweries.

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By GREG CARR

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 3, 2008

VALRICO - Like many collectors, Mike Zane began innocently.

"I started collecting beer cans in the 1970s and did it because my friends did it," the 38-year-old physician said.

Following his initial fascination with can collecting, Zane shelved it in the 1980s, only to dust it off in the 1990s. He decided to focus on Florida, with an emphasis on Tampa breweries.

"I'm especially fascinated in the history behind it," he said.

Zane said his favorite part is the thrill of the find; he attends collectors' shows and searches on eBay.

"It's most exciting when I see a piece I've never seen before, or finding variations," he said.

Zane, a former Air Force major who served the last two years of his medical internship at MacDill Air Force Base, plans to write a history of local breweries that flourished from the turn of the 20th century to the early 1960s. He is a member of the Brewery Collectibles Club of America and American Breweriana.

Zane said Florida's first brewery, Florida Brewery Co., opened in Tampa in the 1890s. It was founded by cigarmakers, and investors included Vicente Martinez-Ybor, for whom Ybor City is named.

Legend has it that in 1898, the company provided refreshments to Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders as they passed through Tampa on the way to the Spanish-American War in Cuba.

Breweriana collectibles are divided between pre- and post-Prohibition, with the earlier items being the most sought.

Zane's most unique collectible is a lithographed tin tip tray from Florida Brewery, circa 1900.

"A waitress would have left it on the table," he said.

Other Florida Brewery items include circa-1900 beer mugs that were given as souvenirs.

"They were given out at brewery tours," Zane said.

The Valrico resident also has two seltzer bottles with the Florida Brewery logo etched into the glass.

"The brewery owned a lot of the bars," he said.

After Florida went dry, the breweries "brewed what was called 'near beer' but were illegally brewing real beer," Zane said.

Federal agents raided Florida Brewery in 1927 and shut it down until Prohibition was repealed in 1933.

After Prohibition, Florida Brewery became Tampa Florida Brewery, offering its flagship brand, La Tropical Beer. Zane said La Tropical lasted until 1947, when "La" was dropped and the name became Tropical Beer and Ale.

Zane's La Tropical items include beer glasses dating to the late 1930s.

Other Tampa breweries included Southern Brewing Co., which made Silver Bar Brew and Ale, and DeSoto Brewing Co., which made Desoto Beer, Colonial Ale and Gasparilla Beer.

The opening of Anheuser-Busch and Schlitz breweries in Tampa in the 1950s signaled the end of the independents, which were gone by the mid-1960s.

"The rise of the nationals led to the demise of local breweries," said Zane, who also collects items from other extinct Florida breweries, including Spirling Brewing Co. of Pensacola, Jax Brewing Co. of Jacksonville and Atlantic Brewing Co. of Orlando.

His collection includes a "bottle bass" - a beer bottle decorated to resemble a mounted fish - made for Jax Brewing by a small firm in Plant City. He also has several paintings that were hung in bars.

"The breweries hired artists to paint tropical scenes with a beer advertisement on it," he said.

In addition to breweriana, Zane collects Tampa cigar labels. He is the only collector in his family and said his wife, JoAnne, and two children tolerate his obsession, which fills a room and stairwell.

Zane can be reached at (813) 655-5460 or mzane36636@aol.com.

If you have an interesting collection you would like to share with our readers, contact Tribune news clerk Greg Carr at (813) 835-2106 or gscarr@tampatrib.com.

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