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Archives for October 11, 2021

Beer In Ads #3875: Hamms! Sunset Toast

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Monday’s ad is for “Hamm’s,” from 1959. This ad was made for Hamm’s Brewing, which was founded in 1865 by Theodore Hamm in St. Paul, Minnesota. At its peak, it was the 5th largest brewery in America, and operated facilities in five cities, including San Francisco, L.A., Baltimore and Houston, in addition to the original brewery in Minnesota. This one features a toasting and clinking their glasses of beer with a sunset lake scene in the background, and the tagline: “Hamm’s! … from the land of sky blue waters!”

Beer Birthday: Kirby Shyer

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zip-city

Today is the 64th birthday of Kirby Shyer, who founded the Zip City Brewing Co. in New York City, the only brewpub in Manhattan when it opened in November of 1991, since both New Amsterdam and Manhattan Brewing has closed earlier. He was a pioneer in the industry, especially on the East Coast because his brewpub was in such a visible place in downtown Manhattan. Unfortunately, when the bottom fell out of craft beer in 1997, the brewery closed. I met Kirby a little later when he was working for another brewery and called on me at BevMo and we later attended a Cleveland Indians baseball game, along with Tom Dalldorf, when the Craft Brewers Conference was in Cleveland in 2002.

Kirby-Shyer

Kirby worked in the brewery industry for several years after Zip City closed, both for breweries and distributors. More recently, he’s left to work on a project outside beer and beverages.

Zip-City-Brewing

All About Beer’s archive includes a great 2017 overview of Zip City and Shyer by Tom Acitelli entitled A Brewpub’s Collapse 20 Years Ago Sounds Familiar.

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The logo and merchandising materials for Zip City, created by John Bloch Designs.
Last year, Kirby was kind enough to send me this awesome Zip City T-shirt from 1995.

Beer Birthday: Kushal Hall

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common-space
Today is the 37th birthday of Kushal Hall, former Director of Brewing Operations for Speakeasy Ales & Lagers. Kushal had been brewing at Speakeasy since 2007, but left in May of 2017 to open his own space in Southern California. The new brewery is called Common Space Brewing and is located in Hawthorne. While Kushal studied photography at UC Santa Cruz, I think we can all agree the world is a better place since he became a brewer. A terrific brewer and person, please join me in wishing Kushal a very happy birthday.

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Kushal, second from the left, and the gang from Speakeasy at the opening gala for SF Beer Week in 2013.

Kush serving his beer
Kush serving his beer at Speakeasy 13th anniversary bash in 2010.

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Kushal as mad scientist (photo by, I believe, Brian Stechschulte).

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Kushal with Betsey and Jesse Friedman at the Anchor Christmas Party in 2012.

[Note: last two photos purloined from Facebook.]