Cyclone vs. Hawkeye Beer — The Story Behind Two Strange Dubuque Brews

Last year, I wrote about the rapidly growing Dubuque Facebook group known as "Buy Nothing," which allows users to post items they're giving away for free. My girlfriend, Catherine, is always finding treasures on the page, and on Monday, she came home with a box of surprises for me.

Someone in town was giving away a box of six (mostly) full cans of beer from the 1980s. Some of these beers were about half full, either from evaporation or a slow leak, but the two that immediately caught my eye were a pair of "rival" beers, curiously made by the same company.

Behold Cyclone Beer and Hawkeye Beer, two libations brewed and canned "for Steve DeBellis" in 1980, so claims the side of the can. They are both unlicensed products from the Jos. Pickett & Sons Brewing Company in Dubuque, IA in 1980. Based on that morsel of information, I was able to dig and find some rich history about how one of the oldest breweries in Iowa is still active to this day, right in our own backyard!

Per an article from All About Beer, Joseph Pickett & Sons Brewing Company as it was known has origins in the Key City that trace back to the 1890s, when it launched as Dubuque Star Brewery (what we know it as today).

Joseph Pickett Sr. himself was a former Pittsburgh Steeler (no relation to recent Steelers quarterback Kenny Pickett that I could confirm), who took up the brewing trade following his playing career. He acquired the brewery to which he would loan his namesake in the 1970s, vastly overhauling its Prohibition-era technology into a brewery for the modern age.

Pickett took it upon himself to utilize Iowa corn for some of his beers, including the then-popular Pickett's Premium, and effectively distributed between the Tri-States (Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin). Sometime in the early 1980s, with assistance of a Midwestern "screwball" historian and preservationist named Steve DeBellis, the brewery created Cyclone Beer and Hawkeye Beer, two brews that honored the state's two most popular schools and teams.

As I mentioned previously, these beers are unlicensed, meaning they were made without the consent of the Iowa State University and the University of Iowa, respectively. The cans both explicitly note that they are not affiliated with the schools they're representing. There is no copyright infringement on the cans either. Both cans boast artist renderings of the Cyclone and Hawkeye mascots.

Then there's Steve DeBellis, who is mentioned on both cans as being the one for whom these beers were brewed. Not by, for. An obituary for DeBellis on St. Louis Public Radio's website refers to him as a self-proclaimed "screwball," who, among many other hobbies, would contract with small, local breweries to make a variety of private label beers.

Several of his creations honored music legends and famous St. Louisans, as well as sports teams. At one point, DeBellis had the largest collection of beer cans in the United States, on top of so much memorabilia that his family had to warehouse his treasures, per St. Louis Public Radio.

DeBellis died in 2014 at the age of 59-years-old.

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Eventually, Joseph Pickett & Sons Brewing Company was sold in the 1980s, but not before these Cyclone and Hawkeye brews saw some local circulation. Cans of both are for sale on eBay at relatively inexpensive prices.

Read more about Joseph Pickett & Sons Brewing Company on Encyclopedia Dubuque. Furthermore, if you have any additional context you could provide to Pickett, DeBellis, or the Cyclone and Hawkeye beers, feel free to email me at: steve.pulaski@townsquaremedia.com.