Holidays

Twas The Beer Before Christmas: A Brewery Visit From St. Nicholas

December 22, 2011

While not widely known, St. Nicholas, among his many patronages includes brewers. He is a patron saint of brewers. The way we think of St. Nick in America begins with the publication of Twas the Night Before Christmas: A Visit From St, Nicholas by Clement C. Moore in 1823. So with my tongue firmly set [...]

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Beer In Ads #503: Merry Christmas From Falstaff

December 21, 2011

Wednesday’s holiday ad is for Falstaff, from 1914. Nice to see that after Santa came down the chimney, he had something other than milk and cookies waiting for him.

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Beer In Ads #502: Look What They’ve Left For Me!

December 20, 2011

Tuesday’s holiday ad is for the Canadian beer Dow Ale, which until around 1966, was the most popular beer in Quebec. This ad looks to be a little earlier, probably in the 1950s. Given that red is he only color (apart from black, of course) in the ad, it’s curious that they didn’t make Santa’s [...]

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Beer In Ads #501: Miller High Life’s Christmas Barn

December 19, 2011

Monday’s holiday ad is for Miller High Life showing an idyllic country scene complete with newly fallen snow, a barn and silo, with a small chapel in the distance, as a horse and sleigh pulls two couples through the white landscape. Ah, Christmas like it never was.

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Beer In Ads #500: Merry Christmas All Around!

December 16, 2011

Friday’s holiday ad — believe it or not, the 500th ad I’ve posted! — is for Schaefer beer. I don’t think it is, strictly speaking, an ad but a display piece, presumably for a bar or a retail store. I’m not sure of its age, but I’m guessing 1950s. I like the subtle double meaning [...]

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Beer In Ads #499: Caroling Alone With Rheingold

December 15, 2011

Thursday’s holiday ad is another one for Rheingold Extra Dry Lager Beer, from 1952. This time, Miss Rheingold 1952, Anne Hogan, is out singing Christmas carols by herself, which means she has to hold both the lamp and the songbook.

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Percy Street’s Beer Can Christmas Tree

December 15, 2011

Here’s a fun one. These are the kinds of press releases that help me get into the spirit of the holidays. The Percy Street Barbecue, a Philadelphia restaurant specializing in barbecue, also carries “over 60 varieties of canned beer” that they serve in custom galvanized steel buckets. Order 5 cans, and the 6th one is [...]

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Beer In Ads #497: Know The Real Joy Of Good Living …

December 13, 2011

Tuesday’s holiday ad is for Schlitz, from 1959. The ad shows a couple, with the man holding a beer and the woman a small, wrapped Christmas gift. But what’s not clear is whether they’re outside or if that snowy tree-lined scene behind them is looking through a large window. Because they don’t look like they’re [...]

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Beer In Ads #496: O’Keefe’s Dans L’esprit Des Fetes

December 12, 2011

Monday’s holiday ad is for the Canadian beer O’Keefe Ale, from 1958. With the slogan “… dans l’esprit des fetes!” — “in the holiday spirit” — it features a fetching couple under the mistletoe pouring a glass of O’Keefe Ale.

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Christmas Beer Bans

December 12, 2011

With Christmas falling on a Sunday this year, apparently more than half of the states still have antiquated blue laws on their books, restricting alcohol sales on Sundays, Christmas or both. As of about a year ago, at least fourteen states still enforced some kind of Sunday restriction. But according to a report today on [...]

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Beer In Ads #494: This Year Buy Him A Beer

December 8, 2011

Thursday’s ad is holiday ad for Michelob, from 1963. Their suggestion, “This year buy him a beer” seems like a good one, though in truth Michelob probably wouldn’t be the one I”d want, but maybe that’s just me. I love how they spin it in the ad copy. They refer to giving Michelob as an [...]

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Beer In Ads #493: Greetings From Schlitz

December 7, 2011

Wednesday’s ad is another holiday one for Schlitz, this one from 1960. She certainly looks ready to party, handing our glasses of beer. I want to be at her Christmas party. And here’s a better scan of the ad, but smaller.

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Beer In Ads #492: Light Refreshment For Your Holidays

December 6, 2011

Tuesday’s ad begins the holiday season for beer ads, and our first this year is for Schlitz, most likely from the 1950s. With the slogan “light refreshment for your holidays,” the ad shows a couple having a few beers by the tree. The woman lounges on a sofa, as the man presumably just gave her [...]

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St. Nicholas: Patron Saint of Brewers

December 6, 2011

While St. Nicholas is best known — in America, at least — for wearing red and white and giving presents to Children each December 25, he’s actually the patron saint for a number of professions, places and afflictions. His feast day is not actually Christmas Day, but almost three weeks earlier on December 6. That’s [...]

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Top 8 Beer Sales Days

November 26, 2011

This two-year old SlashFood article showed up in my Paper.li today, retweeted by a brewery I follow. The article, Super Bowl Sunday — The 8th Biggest Beer Day of the Year? questions the list of the top eight “Holidays/Events for Beer.” The list was complied by Nielsen, and as he points out is “combined beer [...]

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Happy Thanksgiving From The Brookston Beer Bulletin

November 24, 2011

I just finished my family’s Thanksgiving feast, enjoyed with a 2000 magnum of Our Special Ale from Anchor Brewing that I found nestled in the back of one of our refrigerators. Boy am I stuffed. Before the tryptophan kicks in and I’m found drooling on the sofa, I wanted to take a moment to wish [...]

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