Tuesday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1902. The ad is part of a series from that time highlighting different aspects of the beer’s process, its healthfulness and other factors. In this one, the headline is “Beer is Healthful,” but makes the distinction that “green beer” (defined here as “insufficiently aged, half-fermented”) is not, but that you have to keep your beer and packaging clean. Hard to argue with that.
Archives for November 18, 2014
Mickey Mouse Drinking A Beer
Today is the day when Steamboat Willie debuted in 1928, the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, the one that made the Disney company the entertainment powerhouse that it is today. But even though Steamboat Willie is the famous one, it actually wasn’t the first Mickey Mouse cartoon created. Plane Crazy was actually the first one made, and The Gallopin’ Gaucho was the second, but both were shelved to work on Steamboat Willie, and specifically to add a synchronized soundtrack, which is what helped make Mickey Mouse so famous.
But the Gallopin’ Gaucho was notable for one other important reason. In the March 1929 cartoon, four years before the repeal of Prohibition, Mickey Mouse can be seen drinking a mug of beer. And not just drinking it, but really putting one away. But as he as south of the border, at the bar and restaurant called “Cantina Argentina,” he probably wasn’t breaking any laws.
The original, of course, was in black and white.
Below is the entire cartoon, though the best version I could find was colorized.
Skunked Beer: Hide Your Shame
Wired magazine had a short article today giving a basic overview about how beer gets lightstruck, entitled What’s Up With That: My Beer Tastes Like a Skunk’s Bathwater.
It’s a fairly basic explanation of the process of a beer becoming lightstruck — often called skunky — written after interviewing Roger Barth, author of the textbook, the Chemistry of Beer. The author even takes a little thinly-veiled swipe at Corona. “This could explain why certain clear-bottled brands suggest you squeeze a lime into their beer to mask the skunk before taking a swig.” But it was the final sentence that had me in stitches. “But if you must, for reasons I will never understand, drink a Heineken, I suggest you get it on tap and hide your shame in a dark corner of the bar.”