Who Made This Unusual Japanese Beer?

[Hezezilla]

TLDR, I have a Japanese beer that I assume is pre-war but has a basemark from a glassworks in Pennsylvania. How old is it and was it indeed made in PA?

Hi folks. Not often that I post one of my own bottles on here but I recently acquired this unusual Japanese beer from a friend of mine on Big Island, Hawaii. My question is not so much "what is it" (for it says on the bottle), but rather who made it and how old is it?

It's a large sized Japanese beer from Kotobukiya Beer Brewery Co. Ltd. which is now Suntory. They used this old name between 1922 until 1963. It appears to be manufactured by the Brockway Glass Co. due to the "B in a circle" base mark. I assumed it was of Japanese manufacture (like all the other bottles I have) but the stamping on the base makes me think otherwise. It is also machine-made.

Anybody have any ideas? I know some Japanese companies had subsidiaries in Hawaii and California before and after the war but to have it produced in PA and then shipped and bottled in Hawaii is a bit weird. In similar cases these bottles were made by the California factories owned by Owens-Illinois.

The base has the "B in a circle" base mark with "II" above and "17" below. I don't know if this layout is consistent with Brockway Glass Co. I should also mention that the crudity is about on par with most pre-war Japanese bottles but is not an exceptionally crude piece.

Any input is valuable even though I have the feeling that on this site, I have the greatest level of expertise concerning this sort of thing.

Thanks and Aloha!!!

 

[CanadianBottles]

I suspect it's not related to Brockway. The style of manufacture looks more Japanese than American, and a B in a circle isn't a particularly unique concept, there could easily have been two companies using the logo simultaneously in different countries.