Tuesday’s ad is for is by Ballantine Ale, from 1939. Most of this month I’ve been posting Brewer’s Gold ads from the 1950s, but I’ve shared all of the ones I could find, so for the remainder of the month there will be random Ballantine ads. In this simple ad, they’re celebrating their 100th anniversary (which actually would have been the next year) showing a bottle and can of Ballantine Ale.
Archives for May 2018
Beer In Ads #2647: The Emperor For Ballantine’s Brewer’s Gold
Monday’s ad is for is by Ballantine Ale, from 1958. In the 1950s, Ballantine advertised the hop variety “Brewer’s Gold” as “a rare straion of choice hops” and even registered it as a trade-mark, although Brewers Gold is widely available today. In this ad, an Emperor is counting his money, I guess to make sure he has enough to buy some beer, because according to him, “It’s the Genuine.”
Down on The Farmhouse Beers For The Next Session
For our 136th Session, our host will be Dave S, who writes Brewing In A Bedsitter, or “Adventures in small batch homebrew.” For his topic, he’s chosen Farmhouse Beers, by which he’s asking everybody to consider the farmhouse beer or farmhouse brewery and wax philophically about it.
Here is a fuller explanation of what he’s thinking about ways to approach this month’s topic:
Whether it’s about the success of modern craft breweries like Jester King and Burning Sky, the worldwide spread of saison or the revival of international interest in Northern European traditions, farmhouse brewing is a recurring theme in the beer world. It’s a very resonant idea but also one that invites many perspectives, so it seems like an ideal topic for the collective conversation that is The Session.
I’d invite people to approach the topic however they like — the more creative the better — but here are some ideas to get you started.
You could talk about how the word “farmhouse” is used in modern craft breweries, or about historic brewing traditions. You might want to think about how, if at all, the two are related.
If you think that farmhouse brewing or farmhouse beer refers to something meaningful and relevant in modern beer, you could write something touching on what it means to you. What’s its defining element? Is it about style, ingredients, location or something else? Would you call a crisp, clean pilsner or a hoppy IPA a farmhouse beer if it was brewed from local ingredients in a medieval barn? What about a mixed fermentation barrel-aged saison brewed in a light industrial unit in a suburb of Manchester? Why does any of this matter?
If you want to get specific, maybe talk about one or more beers or breweries that you think embody some aspect of the idea of farmhouse brewing. Or if you’re a homebrewer, you could talk about ways that your own beer has been influenced by it.
Conversely, if you think that the modern idea of a farmhouse brewery is largely just about marketing and aesthetics then you could have a go at dissecting and deconstructing it. Where did it originate and what are its roots? Who popularized it? How is it constructed and signaled? Most importantly, why are people so keen to buy into it?
This month, the first Friday is also the first day of the month, June 1, so don’t accidentally miss it. To participate in the June Session, simply post a link to your session post by commenting at the original announcement.
Beer In Ads #2646: Airport Bar Time With Ballantine’s Brewer’s Gold
Sunday’s ad is for is by Ballantine Ale, from 1957. In the 1950s, Ballantine advertised the hop variety “Brewer’s Gold” as “a rare strain of choice hops” and even registered it as a trade-mark, although Brewers Gold is widely available today. In this ad, three couples are sharing beers in an airport bar, a plane visible through the window behind them. I think the couple seated at the table are newlyweds and they’re about to fly to their honeymoon destination. He’s got what looks like it could be rice on his shoulders, and she’s got flowers pinned to the lapel of her dress. Plus, the others are standing around them, as if they’re toasting them and giving them a proper send-off.
Beer In Ads #2645: Soup Time With Ballantine’s Brewer’s Gold
Saturday’s ad is for is by Ballantine Ale, from 1957. In the 1950s, Ballantine advertised the hop variety “Brewer’s Gold” as “a rare strain of choice hops” and even registered it as a trade-mark, although Brewers Gold is widely available today. In this ad, a party is going on at somebody’s house, with several couples in attendance. But as far as I can tell, there’s Ballantine Ale … and soup. That’s it. Just soup. That’s the only food seen in the ad. Which seems odd; I’ve never been to a soup and beer pairing, or even a soup and beer party.
Beer In Ads #2644: Charades Time With Ballantine’s Brewer’s Gold
Friday’s ad is for is by Ballantine Ale, from 1957. In the 1950s, Ballantine advertised the hop variety “Brewer’s Gold” as “a rare strain of choice hops” and even registered it as a trade-mark, although Brewers Gold is widely available today. In this ad, a large party is being held in a tavern or some such. I’m not entirely sure what they’re doing but a good guess seems that they’re playing charades and the woman in the green dress is trying to get people to guess what she’s doing. Of course, she could just be waving to somebody, but everyone except the server is staring at her intently, as if they’re trying to figure it all out. So my money’s on charades.
This scan of the ad is clearer, but it’s only the right half of the double truck.
Beer In Ads #2643: Football Time With Ballantine’s Brewer’s Gold
Thursday’s ad is for is by Ballantine Ale, from 1957. In the 1950s, Ballantine advertised the hop variety “Brewer’s Gold” as “a rare strain of choice hops” and even registered it as a trade-mark, although Brewers Gold is widely available today. In this ad, two couples are meeting at a local tavern after attending a college footbll game at “State.” One couple arrived early and is already working on their first Ballantine Ale.
The other scan of the ad is clearer, but this one shows a little bit more of the right edge of the ad.
Beer In Ads #2642: Backyard Time With Ballantine’s Brewer’s Gold
Wednesday’s ad is for is by Ballantine Ale, from 1957. In the 1950s, Ballantine advertised the hop variety “Brewer’s Gold” as “a rare strain of choice hops” and even registered it as a trade-mark, although Brewers Gold is widely available today. In this ad, a couple is enjoying some beer on their back porch. Across their lawn their neighbors appear to be mowing the lawn and working in their garden. But the first couple poured them glasses of Ballantine Ale and are beckoning them to take a break and come over and join them for a beer. Now that’s being neighborly.
Moon Crater “Beer”
So this is an interesting bit of ephemera. There’s a crater on the Moon that is named “Beer.” I’d like to think it was named for the beverage, but unfortnately that’s apparently not the case. That would have made for a better story, but c’est la vie. Instead, there was a German amateur astronomer who it was named for. The crater in the center is one the called “Beer.” The other big one, in the upper left, used to be called “Beer A” but is now known as Feuillée. The string of smaller craters (known as “craterlets”) in a line to the east-southeast of “Beer” used to be called “Fossa Archimedes” but it’s been suggested they should be called “Catena Beer,” and it seems to be catching on.
Here’s how the name came about:
- Named for Wilhelm Wolff Beer (January 4, 1777 – March 27, 1850), a banker and astronomer in Berlin, Germany. Beer built a private observatory with a 9.5 cm refractor in Tiergarten, Berlin. Together with Johann Heinrich Mädler he produced the first exact map of the Moon (entitled Mappa Selenographica) in 1834-1836, and in 1837 published a description of the Moon (Der Mond nach seinen kosmischen und individuellen Verhältnissen). Both remained the best descriptions of the Moon for many decades.
- Beer was Catalog Number 1185 in the original IAU nomenclature of Named Lunar Formations. The designation is attributed to Birt, and had earlier been adopted by Neison, 1876 (where the designation Beer A is used for what is now known as Feuillée, differing from the modern usage of Beer A for the much smaller crater selected in Named Lunar Formations). Schmidt is said there to have called this feature Hamilton (unrelated to the modern Hamilton) and to have used the name Beer for the crater now known as Rosse. However, Schmidt himself says that his personal preference since 1856, based on the Lohrmann maps (which he edited), was to call the present crater pair Beer and Mädler, but he changed these to Hamilton and Feuillée in his 1878 book in an effort to be consistent with the English observers.
- In his 1880 article, Neison equates Schmidt’s 1878 Hamilton and Feuillée to his 1876 Beer and Beer A and the British Association’s Beer and Mädler.
The Planetary Society has an interesting post where they show an experiment of taking photos of the moon “under different solar illumination conditions.” The NASA photos are all of the craters Beer, Feuillée and the craterlets Fossa Archimedes, which are also known as “Catena Beer.”
Beer In Ads #2641: Fun Time With Ballantine’s Brewer’s Gold
Tuesday’s ad is for is by Ballantine Ale, from 1957. In the 1950s, Ballantine advertised the hop variety “Brewer’s Gold” as “a rare strain of choice hops” and even registered it as a trade-mark, although Brewers Gold is widely available today. In this ad, a group of people are laughing it up at a party with free flowing beer. They seem to be having a good time, though I’m sure the beer is at least partly responsible.