Bill Stoney

Back in the mid 1980's I was at an outdoor family gathering when a relative handed me a bottle of Stoney's Beer he had brought back recently from Pennsylvania. As an eighteen-year-old from New Hampshire, I had never heard of the brand. I was surprised to see a beer with my same last name. I remember after drinking the beer, keeping the empty bottle and putting it up on a shelf in my room.

A short time after that, my father and I took a ten-hour road trip out to western PA to bring a couple cases back home. From a young age my dad had gotten me into antiques, so while out in PA, he and I stopped at a few antique shops as we always did on weekends back in NH. As luck would have it, I discovered a few old Stoney's Beer advertising pieces. I believe I came home that first year with a tray and a couple signs.

I remember wanting to find more, but living in NH made it highly unlikely I was going to run into anything locally. This was also before the age of the internet, so over the next few years my dad and I would try to make as many road trips out to PA as we could to find items for my collection. I remember those years fondly as a wonderful father and son bonding time.

As I got older and started a family of my own, the collection took a back seat for a number of years and was mostly packed away in storage.

However, the internet and eBay had started to become a part of many collectors' lives in the late 90's and early 2000's, so I started using it as a tool to scratch that itch and find at least a couple affordable items to add to my old collection that was slowly coming back out of storage. I recall it wasn't until about 2006 that I started to become more serious about growing the collection I had started almost 20 years earlier.

I found myself researching the brewery's history extensively, including the brick factory building itself and the small town of Smithton it was located in. That same research also included the amazing story of the Jones family, who owned and operated the brewery through generations since 1907.

I was slowly becoming a self-proclaimed all-things-Stoney's-Beer expert. Being informed about what you collect is key in my opinion. Knowing an item's age and rarity is important as a collector, and knowing what it is you're buying can be crucial in the moment it becomes available. I've learned about and documented the timelines of the different advertising images, labels, and slogans this company used over the years.

All this knowledge and the stories behind the beer itself have made my interest in collecting Stoney's Beer even greater. Any collector will tell you it's a passion and a desire to find that next piece, but the hunt and the journey are half the fun. I eventually started taking those trips back to PA again like I did with my dad in the late 80's and early 90's.

Whenever I found something new, it was always a pleasure to stop by my parents' house and show dad the latest addition to the collection. He was always amazed at what I had found, and I think it made him proud that I showed interest in something tied to our last name, as well as continued something he and I started many years ago. He's been gone over 10 years now, but I think he would be speechless at how many items are in my collection today, and that I have an entire room dedicated to it.

Collector groups, publications, auctions, and simple word of mouth have put me in touch with many new and interesting friends along the way. It has helped me add to the collection and to the knowledge of this wonderful hobby we all call Breweriana.

As collectors of Breweriana, we are often asked what we collect. Some collect only cans, others only taps or trays. Another collector might focus on a single brand, or just items from a certain state or region. I personally collect the Stoney's brand name, which started back in 1933 at the end of prohibition. I also collect anything before or during prohibition dating from 1907 to 1933, which would be Eureka Brewing or Puraqua Products and Ice Co., which in my opinion is the foundation of Stoney's Beer.

It still amazes me when I discover or learn about an item I've never seen or heard about before. It's a challenge to find items I don't already have, but that is part of the fun in collecting something you're passionate about.

A number of years back, I wasn't so sure the brand was going to remain in business, and that my collection would be that of a company from a bygone era. But this new generation of Stoney's Beer has breathed new life into my collection, with the exciting news in 2017 of the Jones family taking back the brand and adding yet another chapter to this already amazing and colorful story of perseverance and longevity. The new marketing and current-day items have made wonderful additions. I almost feel like the collection has become an archive of this great brand, from the past right up to the present day.