Tuesday’s ad is for the Green Tree Brewery of St. Louis, and specifically their Buck Beer — apparently a bock — from 1906. Weird that they called it “buck” but then again perhaps they were thinking ahead and believed it was be easier to own or trademark the name which I confess I didn’t even notice was buck when I first looked at this ad.
“Buck” seems to have been a somewhat common alternate spelling for “Bock” in the last half of the 19th century, particular in the mid-West. I’ve seen ads for both Anheuser Busch and Lemp “Buck” beer, such as
http://i.imgur.com/YqiiIUz.jpg
… but even east coast lager brewers used it. For one example, see my page on Newark’s Schalk Bros. Brewing Co. (an early lager brewer who sold his brewery to Peter Ballantine) for an ad for their “Buck Beer” from the 1870s –
https://sites.google.com/site/pballantineandsons/schalkbrewery
There goes my theory …. 😉
I had not seen the “buck” spelling before. But it makes sense, on one level, to change “bock” to “buck” when the label has already changed “bier” to “beer.”
Buck or bock- that’s a handsome label!