If you’re a carbonation junkie, it’s easy to be distracted by all the pop bottles at the Filbert’s Root Beer factory. So many flavors, so many colors—even antifreeze blue! (That’s raspberry, by the way.) But don’t be so dazzled that you neglect to look up, because you’ll be missing one of the best sights in Bridgeport: Ron Filbert’s beer cans.
There are 2,000 in all, neatly arranged on custom-built shelves, the product of a decade of serious collecting during the 70s and 80s.
Filbert’s favorite is the Fox Deluxe Bock, for which he paid $180. (Somebody else had already drunk the beer.) He’s also proud of his James Bond’s 007 Special Blend, which once held a mixture of beer and malt liquor.
For years, the collection stayed boxed up, but when Filbert decided to rent out the factory’s second floor five years ago, he realized he’d either throw out the cans or put them on display.
“I get a lot of old-timers that remember the beers,” he says. “A lot of them are no longer in business. They like to reminisce about the beer they drank when they were younger.”