Thursday’s ad is for “Hamm’s,” from 1961. 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 ad uses the long-running character Sascha, better known as the Hamm’s Bear, a cartoon mascot that the brewery began using in 1952 to great success, and only stopped using in 2000. This one is part of a series Hamm’s did in the early 1960s using the tagline “Big Fresh Taste” and showing their beer in a watery setting of some kind. In this ad, a several beer cans in a metal bucket are in a river (maybe?) and are having water poured over them, with a full glass of beer in the foreground. Above the headline is the phrase: “Thirsty? Taste the secret Hamm’s has captured from nature’s purest waters.”
