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Archives for January 2019

Beer In Ads #2891: Bières de la Meuse

January 31, 2019 By Jay Brooks

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Thursday’s ad is for Bières de la Meuse, from 1896. From the late 1800s until the 1940s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is for Bières de la Meuse, a river that runs through much of France. It was the industrial center of France at one time, and in the mid-1800s boasted over 40 breweries. The poster was created by Swiss artist Marc-Auguste Bastard.

Bieres-de-la-Meuse-1896-lg

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, France, History

Beer In Ads #2890: Bière St. Nicolas de Port

January 30, 2019 By Jay Brooks

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Wednesday’s ad is for Bière St. Nicolas de Port, from 1933. From the late 1800s until the 1940s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is for the Bière St. Nicolas de Port, located in the Lorraine region of northeast France. The brewery was open until 1985, when the old brewery became what is known today as the Musée Francais de la Brasserie, or French Brewery Museum. The poster was created by French artist Marcellin Auzolle.

Beire-St-Nicolas-de-Port-1933

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, France, History

Beer In Ads #2889: Birra Napoli

January 29, 2019 By Jay Brooks

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Tuesday’s ad is for Birra Napoli, from 1922. From the late 1800s until the 1940s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is for the Birrerie Meridionali in Napoli, Italy. Originally founded in 1904, the brewery was bought by Peroni in 1929, who kept in going until they closed it in 1955. The poster was created by famous French artist Achille Lucien Mauzan.

Birra-Napoli-1922

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, History, Italy

Beer In Ads #2888: La Perle

January 28, 2019 By Jay Brooks

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Monday’s ad is for La Perle, from 1919. From the late 1800s until the 1940s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is for the Brasserie de la Perle, which was located in Strasbourg. Originally founded in 1882, the brewery closed in 1971, but in 2015 the great-great-grandson of the founder reopened the brewery as a small craft brewery.

La_Perle_Strasbourg-1919

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, France, History

Beer In Ads #2887: Bières de Neufchâteau

January 27, 2019 By Jay Brooks

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Sunday’s ad is for Bières de Neufchâteau, from the 1920s. From the late 1800s until the 1940s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is for Bières de Neufchâteau. Neufchâteau is a commune in the Vosges department in Grand Est in northeastern France. It was created by French illustrator Georges Ripart.

Bieres_de_Neufchateau

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, France, History

Lewis Carroll’s Scheme To Get People Drinking Beer At Home

January 27, 2019 By Jay Brooks

drink-me

Today is the birthday of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll. He was “an English writer of world-famous children’s fiction, notably Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass. He was noted for his facility at word play, logic and fantasy. The poems Jabberwocky and The Hunting of the Snark are classified in the genre of literary nonsense. He was also a mathematician, photographer, and Anglican deacon.” One of his lesser known books, two really, was Sylvie and Bruno and its sequel Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, published in 1889 and 1893, respectively.

Sylvie-and-Bruno-Concluded

In the latter, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, Carroll writes about his idea on how to keep drunkards at home, drinking their beer there and not throwing away the family’s money, all to the betterment of society. It begins in Chapter V: Mathilda Jane.

When the full stream of loving memories had nearly run itself out, I began to question her about the working men of that neighbourhood, and specially the ‘Willie,’ whom we had heard of at his cottage. “He was a good fellow once,” said my kind hostess: “but it’s the drink has ruined him! Not that I’d rob them of the drink—it’s good for the most of them—but there’s some as is too weak to stand agin’ temptations: it’s a thousand pities, for them, as they ever built the Golden Lion at the corner there!”

“The Golden Lion?” I repeated.

“It’s the new Public,” my hostess explained. “And it stands right in the way, and handy for the workmen, as they come back from the brickfields, as it might be to-day, with their week’s wages. A deal of money gets wasted that way. And some of ’em gets drunk.”

“If only they could have it in their own houses—” I mused, hardly knowing I had said the words out loud.

“That’s it!” she eagerly exclaimed. It was evidently a solution, of the problem, that she had already thought out. “If only you could manage, so’s each man to have his own little barrel in his own house—there’d hardly be a drunken man in the length and breadth of the land!”

And then I told her the old story—about a certain cottager who bought himself a little barrel of beer, and installed his wife as bar-keeper: and how, every time he wanted his mug of beer, he regularly paid her over the counter for it: and how she never would let him go on ‘tick,’ and was a perfectly inflexible bar-keeper in never letting him have more than his proper allowance: and how, every time the barrel needed refilling, she had plenty to do it with, and something over for her money-box: and how, at the end of the year, he not only found himself in first-rate health and spirits, with that undefinable but quite unmistakeable air which always distinguishes the sober man from the one who takes ‘a drop too much,’ but had quite a box full of money, all saved out of his own pence!

“If only they’d all do like that!” said the good woman, wiping her eyes, which were overflowing with kindly sympathy. “Drink hadn’t need to be the curse it is to some——”

“Only a curse,” I said, “when it is used wrongly. Any of God’s gifts may be turned into a curse, unless we use it wisely. But we must be getting home. Would you call the little girls? Matilda Jane has seen enough of company, for one day, I’m sure!”

So Carroll insists that it’s not beer or drink that’s bad for them, it’s over-indulging in it. That seems a rather progressive idea for 1893, especially in the face of temperance movements of the day.

But his solution is sublime. To avoid so many people wasting their wages down at the pub, just give every household its own Kegerator and barrel of beer so they’ll instead come home most nights and drink their beer there with their family. Genius.

golden-lion

Later in the chapter, Sylvie and Bruno find themselves outside The Golden Lion.

“And that’s the new public-house that we were talking about, I suppose?” I said, as we came in sight of a long low building, with the words ‘The Golden Lion’ over the door.

“Yes, that’s it,” said Sylvie. “I wonder if her Willie’s inside? Run in, Bruno, and see if he’s there.”

I interposed, feeling that Bruno was, in a sort of way, in my care. “That’s not a place to send a child into.” For already the revelers were getting noisy: and a wild discord of singing, shouting, and meaningless laughter came to us through the open windows.

“They wo’n’t see him, you know,” Sylvie explained. “Wait a minute, Bruno!” She clasped the jewel, that always hung round her neck, between the palms of her hands, and muttered a few words to herself. What they were I could not at all make out, but some mysterious change seemed instantly to pass over us. My feet seemed to me no longer to press the ground, and the dream-like feeling came upon me, that I was suddenly endowed with the power of floating in the air. I could still just see the children: but their forms were shadowy and unsubstantial, and their voices sounded as if they came from some distant place and time, they were so unreal. However, I offered no further opposition to Bruno’s going into the house. He was back again in a few moments. “No, he isn’t come yet,” he said. “They’re talking about him inside, and saying how drunk he was last week.”

While he was speaking, one of the men lounged out through the door, a pipe in one hand and a mug of beer in the other, and crossed to where we were standing, so as to get a better view along the road. Two or three others leaned out through the open window, each holding his mug of beer, with red faces and sleepy eyes. “Canst see him, lad?” one of them asked.

“I dunnot know,” the man said, taking a step forwards, which brought us nearly face to face. Sylvie hastily pulled me out of his way. “Thanks, child,” I said. “I had forgotten he couldn’t see us. What would have happened if I had staid in his way?”

Sylvie_and_Bruno-ch-6

In Chapter VI, they decide to rescue Willie from his pub crawling ways.

He made for the door of the public-house, but the children intercepted him. Sylvie clung to one arm; while Bruno, on the opposite side, was pushing him with all his strength, with many inarticulate cries of “Gee-up! Gee-back! Woah then!” which he had picked up from the waggoners.

‘Willie’ took not the least notice of them: he was simply conscious that something had checked him: and, for want of any other way of accounting for it, he seemed to regard it as his own act.

“I wunnut coom in,” he said: “not to-day.”

“A mug o’ beer wunnut hurt ’ee!” his friends shouted in chorus. “Two mugs wunnut hurt ’ee! Nor a dozen mugs!”84

“Nay,” said Willie. “I’m agoan whoam.”

“What, withouten thy drink, Willie man?” shouted the others. But ‘Willie man’ would have no more discussion, and turned doggedly away, the children keeping one on each side of him, to guard him against any change in his sudden resolution.

Willie went home and gave all his wages to his wife, and she was pretty happy, as were his children. The only thing that would have made the ending better is if his wife had installed a barrel of beer so he could come home every day after work and have a drink of beer there, as was the earlier suggestion Carroll made.

Sylvie_and_Bruno
Sylvia and Bruno, from the inside cover of the original edition, with illustrations by Harry Furniss.

Filed Under: Beers, Just For Fun Tagged With: England, Great Britain, History, Literature, Prohibition

Beer In Ads #2886: Bière Mètèor

January 26, 2019 By Jay Brooks

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Saturday’s ad is for Bière Mètèor, from 1925. From the late 1800s until the 1940s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is for Brasserie Mètèor, a French brewery founded in 1811, at least according to the poster. Other sources claim it was 1640. It is located in Hochfelden, north-west of Strasbourg in the department of Bas-Rhin, in the Alsace region of Eastern France.

Biere-meteor

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, France, History

Beer In Ads #2885: Bière De L’Espérance

January 25, 2019 By Jay Brooks

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Friday’s ad is for Bière De l’Espérance, from 1920. From the late 1800s until the 1940s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is for Brasserie de l’Espérance (which means “Brewery of Hope”), a French brewery founded in 1746, near the town of Strasbourg, in the Alsace region of Eastern France.

Biere_de_l_Esperance_c1900

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, France, History

Beer In Ads #2884: Birra Livorno

January 24, 2019 By Jay Brooks

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 3993724870_6a0224e391.jpg

Thursday’s ad is for Birra Livorno, from possibly the late 1890s, though it could be from as late as the 1920s. From the late 1800s until the 1940s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is for Birra Livorno, an Italian brewery founded in 1893. Livorno is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western coast of Tuscany, Italy.

Birra-Livorno-2

I also found this second image of the poster showing very different colors.

Birra-Livorno

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, History, Italy

Beer In Ads #2883: Orval

January 23, 2019 By Jay Brooks

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 3993724870_6a0224e391.jpg

Wednesday’s ad is for Orval, from 1931, though some sources say it’s from the 1920s. From the late 1800s until the 1940s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is for Orval, though I’m not sure who the artist was that created it.

Orval-1920s

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Belgium, History

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