Archives for April 4, 2022

Beer In Ads #4049: Miss Rheingold 1946 At A Baseball Game

April 4, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Monday’s ad is for “Rheingold Beer,” from 1946. This ad was made for the Rheingold Brewery, which was founded by the Liebmann family in 1883 in New York, New York. At its peak, it sold 35% of all the beer in New York state. In 1963, the family sold the brewery and in was shut down in 1976. In 1940, Philip Liebmann, great-grandson of the founder, Samuel Liebmann, started the “Miss Rheingold” pageant as the centerpiece of its marketing campaign. Beer drinkers voted each year on the young lady who would be featured as Miss Rheingold in advertisements. In the 1940s and 1950s in New York, “the selection of Miss Rheingold was as highly anticipated as the race for the White House.” The winning model was then featured in at least twelve monthly advertisements for the brewery, beginning in 1940 and ending in 1965. Beginning in 1941, the selection of next year’s Miss Rheingold was instituted and became wildly popular in the New York Area. This ad, which ran in December, is introducing the new Miss Rheingold for 1946, Rita Daigle.” She was born in New York, July 31, 1927, and started modeling when was seventeen (lying about her age) and was Miss Stardust of 1944 and Queen of the 1945 Photographers Ball. The same December she was crown Miss Rheingold, she married a well-known singer, Jimmy Saunders, who sang with Harry James, among others, and co-wrote songs with Frank Sinatra. Her modeling career both before and after 1946 was fairly robust, with her appearing on the cover of such magazines as Cosmopolitan, Life and Vogue. In this ad, from late July and August, she’s in the front row at a baseball game — Section R, no less. I’m sure some copy editor thought they were being really clever. She’s taking about her trouble with the curve ball to a baseball player, and whether it’s just an optical illusion. Andwhile she never solved the riddle of the curve ball, she does declare that at least her beer is real.

Historic Beer Birthday: Fritz Funke

April 4, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Fritz Funke (April 4, 1821-April 23, 1994). He was the son of a mason and went into construction, and owned to companies and was very successful. Along with Johann Wilhelm Schürenberg, entrepreneur Ewald Hilger, businessman Gustav Hicking, and banker Ludwig von Born, he founded what would become the Stern-Brauerei in the city of Essen. Originally called Actien-Bierbrauerei when it was founded in 1872, and Funke’s construction company built the brewery.

The brewery closed in 1989. Today, the beer is brewed in the Jacob Stauder private brewery in Altenessen and continues to be sold under the old Stern brand name.

Historic Beer Birthday: Herman Zibold

April 4, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Herman Zibold (April 4, 1836-July 20, 1891). He was born in Riegel, Baden, in what today is Germany. When he was 23, in 1859, he emigrated to the U.S., and fought in the Civil War for four years. Afterward, he worked for breweries in St. Louis and St. Joseph, both in Missouri. He Eventually settled in Atchison, Kansas and with a business partner who was also originally from Baden, Joseph Hagelin, bought what was originally a brewery started by Hugo Knecht and Albert Weinman in 1860. Zibold bought it from the third owners in 1871, and renamed it the Zibold & Hagelin Brewery. Zibold operated the brewery for the next twenty years, and after he died, Haegelin continued the business but also died two years later, in 1893. Their two widows kept it going, but I’ve been unable to find out when it finally closed.

Historic Beer Birthday: Henry Thrale

April 4, 2022 By Jay Brooks 2 Comments

Nobody’s sure exactly when the birthday of Henry Thrale is, not even the year is certain. He may have been born in 1724 or it may have been 1720. He did, however, die on April 4, 1781. He was the son of brewer Ralph Thrale (1698–1758), who bought the Anchor Brewery in Southwark, London, England in 1729. Henry Thrale became the owner when his father died. By “the early nineteenth century it was the largest brewery in the world. From 1781 [after Henry Thrale died] it was operated by Barclay Perkins & Co, who merged with Courage in 1955. The brewery was demolished in 1981.”

This is his basic biography from his Wikipedia page:

Henry Thrale was a British politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1765 to 1780. He was a close friend of Samuel Johnson. Like his father, he was the proprietor of the large London brewery, H. Thrale & Co.

Born at the Alehouse in Harrow Corner, Southwark, he was the son of the rich brewer Ralph Thrale (1698–1758) and Mary Thrale. He married Hester Lynch Salusbury on 11 October 1763; they had 12 children, and she outlived him. He was MP for Southwark 23 December 1765 – September 1780, an Alderman, and Sheriff of the City of London: a respected, religious man who was a good hunter and sportsman with a taste for gambling.

Thrale’s Anchor Brewery around 1785.

This is the entry for Barclay, Perkins & Co. Ltd, which at one time had been Thrale’s Anchor Brewery, from “The Brewing Industry: A Guide to Historical Records,” edited by Lesley Richmond, Alison Turton, published in 1990:

The Anchor Brewery around 1820.

And finally, the famous English writer Charles Dickens, during the period when he was writing many of his major works, “he was also the publisher, editor, and a major contributor to the journals Household Words (1850–1859) and All the Year Round (1858–1870). In “Volume V, from March 30, 1861 to September 21, 1861,” in a piece entitled “Queen of the Blue Stockings,” from April 20, 1861, Ralph Thrale is mentioned in a history of the Barclay Perkins brewery to give context to his tale:

A marker where Thrale’s brewery once stood in central London.