What company presently manufactures and sells wholesale lidded  
aluminum ale tankards with glass or metal bottoms in sizes of 20 ozs
or larger?

Note: Answer excludes trophy shops, gift stores, and bar supply
businesses that merely buy from a manufacturer and resell. Answer also
excludes unlidded mugs, and mugs made of metals other than aluminum.
This question requires finding the actual point of origin, which will
almost certainly be an aluminum products factory. Please confirm the
source before entering your answer.

A possible lead: Apex (brand name) tankard, made in Hong Kong.

Good hunting, all!

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Request for Question Clarification by drjmetz-ga on 24 Jul 2002 14:12 PDT

I want to make sure I have the right idea of what you're looking for. 
How much of the bottom of the tankard must be made of metal?  For
instance, if I found a company with a glass stein with an aluminum
lid, does this qualify?  Or are you literally meaning the base of the
tankard can be glass or some other metal?
.
Also, it's possible that the ale tankard may be made by one company
and the lid by another.  If this were to occur, would you want just
the aluminum lid manufacturer, the tankard manufacturer, or both?

Thanks

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Clarification of Question by ldmorgan-ga on 24 Jul 2002 19:49 PDT

Drjmetz:

Any glass-bodied item with an aluminum lid is excluded. So is a
lidless tankard with a teapot lid that happens to fit. A lidded
aluminum tankard must be made out of aluminum, and it must have a lid.
The lid must be integral with the tankard, and attached to the tankard
by the manufacturer at the time of manufacture. The bottom of the
tankard may be made of aluminum, or it may be made of glass. Neither
the tankard body or the tankard lid may be made of wood or plastic, or
any material other than aluminum. However, they may be plain aluminum
or aluminum of any color, whether anodized or painted.

The source quoted for the lidded tankard must be the bona fide
commercial origin of the genuine article.

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Clarification of Question by ldmorgan-ga on 25 Jul 2002 13:59 PDT

Siliconsamauri-ga:

Nice hunting. The out of business manufacturer would be the one in
Canada, I believe. Pity. They had a nice product, and the
extra-extra-large size would have been ideal.

The glass-bottom tankard has a tapered cylindrical aluminum  body with
a disc of glass set into the decoratively stepped lower end. Kind of a
watch-the-scenery-as-you-drink thing. The glass is breakable, so some
manufacturers also made it with a metal disc instead of glass.

They're made in aluminum mostly for convenience in engraving, and to
be given out as an inexpensive premium item.

Ceramic steins are indeed much more common, just not what I need.

A company that would tool up is just not practical. Tooling up is
expensive, (probably $10K+ in this case) and there is an infinity of
pitfalls in the process. Then too, if the company is already carrying
the product, you can order quarterly, instead of yearly. Warehousing
product is also expensive.

Nice write--thanx for the comment.

I was only able to locate one manufacturer and they appear to be out
of business.

I presume you know that steins are normally made out of ceramic
material to insulate the beer and keep it cold longer?  This may limit
the number of companies which want to get into this area without a
ready market.  Would you be interested in a manufacturer who would be
willing to tool up to produce what you want?

When you say the "bottom" may be glass, I understand you to indicate
that the very bottom of the otherwise metal mug may be glass, forming
a see-through window.

The glass bottom, by the way, was originally a response to a
heavy-handed recruiting technique employed in bygone days by the
British Army.

New recruits were given a shilling as a sort of signing bonus, and
once they'd accepted the "King's shilling" they were officially part
of the army's strength.  Attempting to evade service and return home
constituted desertion.  Knowing this, unscrupulous recruiters would
buy a beer for a likely candidate, and slip the shilling into the mug.
 Once the victim got to the bottom, and spit the shilling into his
hand, he was considered to have taken the King's shilling. 
Congratulations, lad, you're a soldier!

The glass bottom allowed foreign objects to be readily seen, before
the crucial moment.

Returning to your question, I live a few blocks from a major brewery
and have enlisted a few of their PR people in your quest.  Hopefully,
we may have something for you over the next week or so.

Of course, with aluminum now being linked to Alzheimer's, it has
fallen into disuse for many of these products.  That is likely why
this has been such a difficult hunt.

-Chromedome