Today is Suzanne Woods’ 34th birthday. I first met her during my trip to Philadelphia for Philly Beer Week its inaugural year. She writes online as the Beer Lass and by day is the mid-atlantic salesperson for Allagash, though when I first met her she worked for Sly Fox Brewing outside of Philadelphia. Check out a great photo of her in pigtails when she was five. Join me in wishing Suzanne a very happy birthday.
With Suzanne during a visit to Sly Fox Brewing at the beginning of Philly Beer Week.
Outside the Philly Bar, Sidecar, with some colorful local characters at the bar.
Wednesday’s ad is from 1908, for a Philadelphia brewery by the name of Rieger & Gretz Brewers and Bottlers. I love the idyll setting with the well-to-do woman enjoying a beer on her estate. I can’t imagine most beer drinking was like that in 1908.
This was created back in May, but it escaped my notice. April Kuhn created a cool poster for Drink Philly entitled The Philadelphia History of Beer. According to the website, “[w]hile it doesn’t cover everything that’s occurred in Philadelphia since its founding, it does cover a lot — and it shows why this truly is one of the world’s greatest spots for beer.” If you’d like one of the poster for your very own, they’re on sale online for $10 right now.
This week’s work of art is by John Lewis Krimmel. He was born in Germany, but emigrated to the U.S. in 1809 to join his brother in Philadelphia. Instead of joining the family business, he took up painting and became well-known for his genre paintings depicting everyday life in the city of brotherly love. One of his most well-known paintings was “The Village Tavern,” painted between 1813-14.
The painting is also sometimes called “In An American Inn,” and just from searching around, it appears their may be more than one of them, as there seem to be various references to both that are very, very similar, but not quite exactly the same, with slightly different colors and with the size of what’s depicted more or less, as if Krimmel painted the exact same scene more than once.
Perhaps most curiously, apparently the painting was used by prohibitionists as propaganda. “The depiction of a mother and daughter trying to persuade the drunken father to come home has caused historians of the temperance movement to praise In an American Inn as the first work of an American artist to illustrate this issue.” But that interpretation does not seem obvious to me. Nothing in the woman or the child’s demeanor suggests to me that they’re trying to persuade the man of anything. And the man is raising his glass to her with a smile on his face. And nobody else around them seems particularly alarmed by them being there. In fact, many people in the tavern don’t seem to be paying them any mind whatsoever, as if their presence is not so unusual. It just looks an old-fashioned scene from the TV show Cheers, with several groups in the inn.
The Woodmere Art Museum has in its collection the “Study for ‘Village Tavern,’” oil on wood panel, also done in 1814.
And the Winterthur Library has two early drawings that would eventually become the painting, done in ink and ink wash over pencil.
They contain all the elements of the finished work, but you can see the artist trying out different placements for the characters in the painting.
You can read Krimmel’s biography at Wikipedia or at Terra. There are links to more Krimmel resources at the ArtCyclopedia. You can also see more of his work at the Art Renewal Center, Scholar’s Resource, the Philadelphia Academy and the American Gallery.
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 free.
For Christmas this year, they created an 8-foot tree made entirely of beer cans, over 400 in all. It “took General Manager Aric Ferrell and Desiree Howie, a staff member and local artist, over 12 hours to assemble.”
Now that’s the spirit. Who’s thirsty now.
(photos by Drea Rane.)
Today is fellow beer writer Don Russell’s 56th birthday. Don writes a beer column for the Philadelphia Daily News under the nom de plume Joe Sixpack. He also writes a blog online, Beer Radar, and is one of the organizers of Philly Beer Week. His latest book, What the Hell Am I Drinking?, was just published and — dare I say it — would make a great Christmas gift. Better still, you can order a copy directly from the author. Don is a fellow Pennsylvanian, a crack card player, and one of my very favorite people to share a beer with. Join me in wishing Don a very happy birthday.
Don (center) with me and Lisa Morrison at the Hofbrauhaus in Munich during a press junket to Bavaria a few years ago.
Don, with fellow Pennsylvanians Lew Bryson and Jack Curtin at GABF.
Me and Don at the kick-off for the first Philly Beer Week in 2008.
Don with Pete Slosberg, signing books at GABF a couple of years ago.
