Bottles on the Border: The History and Bottles of the Soft Drink ...

Cerva Near Beer
By May 8, 1918, in an attempt to remain in business, Houck &
Dieter advertised Cerva, a cereal beverage or near-beer brewed by the
Lemp Brewery in St. Louis, one of their main former brands of beer.
With good timing, the ad showed up less than a month after a new Texas
law took effect. The new law prohibited the manufacture or sale of any
alcoholic beverage withing ten miles of a military post. Since El Paso
was still relatively small, the entire city was within a ten-mile radius of
Fort Bliss, so the law effectively created Prohibition almost two years
prior to the national amendment.
Unlike most near-beers, sold in regular beer bottles, the Cerva
bottle pictured in the ad looked more like a soft drink container (Figure
5-43). The paper label stated “‘Bear’ In Mind / CERVA / The World’s
Best Beverage” along with two bears at the right and left sides of the
label. The ad further suggested, “Enjoy the good taste of hops, the foam
and the sparkle. Drink all you want–it’s non-intoxicating. At grocers, at
druggists, in fact at all places where good drinks are sold” (EPT
6/28/1918).
The ad also noted that Cerva was sold along with United Profit
Sharing Coupons. Similar to Green Stamps thirty years later, these
coupons allowed the purchaser to redeem a sufficient number of
coupons for merchandise. The company promised that forty coupons
“(2 coupons each denomination 20) are packed in every case.
Exchangeable for valuable premiums” (EPT 6/28/1918).
The name is strange. Cerva means deer or doe in Italian – yet
the ad makes word play with “bear,” including a couple of bruins
frolicking at the top. Cerva could also be a diminutive for “cerveza” –
the Spanish word for beer.
Figure 5-43 – Cerva ad
(El Paso Times
9/13/1918:5)
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