Jay R. Brooks on Beer
Friday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1952. It uses their popular “If you love beer … you’ll love Schlitz” mantra that graced so many of their ads. But this one seems slightly odder. For example, I don’t quite get the animated discussion that appears to be centering on that red hunting cap. But perhaps more interesting is the bottom left corner, where they’re attempting to teach consumers that brown bottles protect beer better. And I thought that was a new tactic.
For our Friday Frivolity here’s a fun little cartoon created by H. Caldwell Tanner. Entitled Beer is like Ice Cream for Adults, and subtitled “and here’s why” explains why those of us who are of an advanced age can enjoy both beer and ice cream. Hooray for us!
Today’s infographic is an odd one. Entitled Beer Efficiency Score, they mean “How potent is my brew per calorie consumed?” It’s a rather dubious measure of a beer, but interesting that someone would go to the trouble to figure it out.
This week was a fun one, in part because Tom Acitelli was in town on his book tour, promoting his new paperback The Audacity of Hops: The History of America’s Craft Beer Revolution. He started Tuesday evening at the Anchor Brewery, where he spoke briefly, signed some books and all of us enjoyed a few beers.
Tom Acitelli reading from the “Audacity of Hops” at Anchor Brewing.
Dave Suurballe, Judy Ashworth, Julie Nickels and Bruce Paton at Tom’s book event.
The next day, Tom drove up to my house, and from there we had lunch at Russian River, and then we whisked over to the production brewery for a quick tour before doing a Bottom of the Bottle podcast at Beercraft in Rohnert Park. Then that evening Tom did an event at Lagunitas hosted by my local book store chain, Copperfield’s Books, before heading back home to Boston the following morning.
Tom with Vinnie Cilurzo at Russian River’s production brewery.
On the Bottom of the Bottle podcast (photo by Greg Coll).
Joe Tucker, stealing a drink, Jeremy Marshall, me Tom and Ken Weaver at Lagunitas.
It was great fun hanging out for a longer period of time with Tom, as we’d only met briefly a couple of times before. His new book, The Audacity of Hops: The History of America’s Craft Beer Revolution, seems very, very good. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all of the parts I’ve managed to find the time to read so far, and many people whose opinions I respect are all saying the same thing: that Tom has managed to write a comprehensive, thorough and enjoyable history of the craft beer since 1965. I heartily recommend his book to anyone new to the beer world, or anyone who wants to get some context to how we got to where we are today. It’s been a great journey.
