Saturday’s ad is for Gunther, from 1959. The ad appeared in the Baltimore Orioles Yearbook for the 1959 season. Gunther Brewing was also located in Baltimore, Maryland.
Jay R. Brooks on Beer
Jay R. Brooks on Beer
Saturday’s ad is for Gunther, from 1959. The ad appeared in the Baltimore Orioles Yearbook for the 1959 season. Gunther Brewing was also located in Baltimore, Maryland.
Nice graphical values, but once again, “light”, “smooth”… Did any brewer in the 1950’s-60’s vaunt beer with flavor? Ballantine did in a manner of speaking, for the XXX. Anyone else?
What happened to American beer in this period? They were all walking over a cliff with no one to call a halt. Why?
Gary
Gunther beer was a blip on the beer radar – it was around when my family moved to MD in late 1962, but was gone by the time I was legally able to buy it (1970). It was a distant 2nd to National Bohemian in sales of Baltimore beers (which was the O’s TV/Radio sponsor from 1963-sometime in the 70’s).
As to Gary’s comment – Bud dominated the market, with Schlitz & Miller putting up the chase nationally; local similar “crap brews” had more market share then than now. The mergers started in the 70’s (Carling bought National); Schlitz bought Stroh’s (Detroit) & spent too much $$ for it – both of those brands now fall into the “generic” genre & have far less shelf presence than they did 40 yrs ago).
Bottom line is that there were virtually no “craft” brews available in the US then, save for a few small locals who were surviving on a wing & a prayer – only the European & Canadian breweries offered something different (& what we could get was limited to Lowenbrau, Molson, & a few others). Then Miller got a license to brew Lowenbrau in the US (circa 1975) & their version sucked compared to the German product. Bottom line is that it was (& still is) more about $$ than beer for the macros.
Okay but why didn’t one of the small regionals try something different? There was (you will recall) Prior Double Dark which was pretty good, but it’s maker sank without a trace too by the late 70’s.
Why didn’t a small group of breweries resurrect the original European recipes and push that as an alternative? No one seemed to see a value proposition in this. To the extent a “real” beer was wanted, Heineken, which at the time was an adjunct beer, and Molson or Labatt, which were ditto, were the only alternatives. Can the post-war brewers have become so distant from the origins of the product that they forget what it was? “Bo”, National Bohemian, was named for a Czech beer, as for Michelob and Budweiser: surely some people in brewing understood what the palate was that the 1800’s U.S. brewers took inspiration from. Could they all have forgotten? Nor was this a period of austerity (in general), post-War American was flush.
Gary