Archives for April 13, 2022

Beer In Ads #4058: Season’s Best From Miss Rheingold 1946

April 13, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Wednesday’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 December, she’s decked out in a red and white suit that almost looks like she could be Mrs. Claus, and riding a sleigh full of beer, which is the shot they working on which appeared in yesterday’s newspaper ad.

Beer Birthday: Ray McCoy

April 13, 2022 By Jay Brooks 2 Comments

If you’re on the national beer festival circuit, you’ve no doubt seen Ray McCoy, whose birthday is today. In 2003, Ray was crowned “Beer Drinker of the Year” in the contest sponsored by Wynkoop. Ray and his wife, Cornelia Corey (herself a 2001 BDOTY, making them the only couple to have won) travel from their native North Carolina to attend many of the big beer festivals and events around the country, and the parties are always a bit more fun when they’re around. Join me in wishing Ray a very happy birthday.

At the Great Divide Brewery in Denver, Cornelia and Ray, during GABF week in 2007.

Cornelia and Ray at the 19th Anniversary Party for the Celebrator Beer News.

Historic Beer Birthday: George Gund II

April 13, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of George Gund II (April 13, 1888-November 15, 1966). He was the son of George F. Gund and the grandson of John Gund, the founder of John Gund Brewing, of La Crosse, Wisconsin, and the brother of Henry Gund and John Gund Jr., who founded Lexington Brewing, in Lexington, Kentucky. George Frederick Gund founded Gund Brewing Co., of Cleveland, Ohio. Despite the brewing heritage, Gund II “was an American banker, business executive, and real estate investor who lived in Cleveland, Ohio in the early and middle part of the 20th century. Heir to the George Frederick Gund brewing and banking fortune, he was a philanthropist for most of his life. He established The George Gund Foundation in 1952 and endowed it with most of his $600 million fortune at his death.”

Here’s his biography from Wikipedia:

Gund’s grandfather, Johann Gund, was born in 1830 in Brühl am Rhein in the independent country of the Grand Duchy of Baden (now part of Germany). The family emigrated to the United States in 1848 and settled in Illinois, but in 1854 moved to La Crosse, Wisconsin. There his grandfather founded the John Gund Brewery. His father, George Frederick Gund, was born in LaCrosse in 1856 and later managed the Gund Brewery. His father moved to Seattle, Washington, founded the Seattle Brewing and Malting Company, became a director of two banks, and then returned to the Midwest to move his family to Cleveland in 1897. His father bought the Jacob Mall Brewing Company, renamed it the Gund Brewing Company, and made a large fortune investing in banking, mining, and real estate.

George Gund, Jr. (as he was then known) was born to George Frederick and Anna Louise (Metzger) Gund on April 13, 1888. He was a student at the University School of Cleveland from 1897 to 1905. He entered Harvard University, and received his A.B. in 1909. Toward the end of his Harvard education, he simultaneously enrolled in the Harvard Business School, and graduated in the school’s first class in 1909. He moved to Seattle and took a job as a clerk with the Seattle First National Bank, but moved back to Cleveland when his father died in 1916. But when World War I broke out, he enlisted in the United States Army and served in the Military Intelligence Division.

The Jacob Mall Brewing Co. when George Gund bought it in 1897.

After the start of prohibition in the United States in 1920, Gund was forced to close his father’s brewery in Cleveland. But during the war, Kaffee HAG, a German corporation, was stripped of its assets in the United States. Among its subsidiaries was Sanka, the company which manufactured decaffeinated coffee. Gund purchased Sanka in 1919, then sold it to Kellogg’s in 1927 for $10 million in stock. Gund also took over management of the Gund Realty Company in Cleveland and invested his money in numerous ventures. During the depths of the Great Depression, he purchased large amounts of stock at very low prices.

Gund studied animal husbandry at Iowa State University from 1922 to 1923. He made many trips to California and Nevada, often staying there for many months at a time, and became interested in a possible political career in Nevada. He purchased a large cattle ranch in Nevada, but on May 23, 1936, he married Jessica Laidlaw Roesler. She was the granddaughter of Henry Bedell Laidlaw, the founder of one of the first investment banking houses in New York City, Laidlaw & Company. Gund purchased a large home in Beachwood, a wealthy suburb of Cleveland, and the couple had six children: George III, Agnes, Gordon, Graham, Geoffrey, and Louise.

In 1937, Gund was elected a director of the Cleveland Trust Company (a savings bank established in 1896), and was named president in 1941. He was made chairman of the board of trustees in 1962. Under Gund’s leadership, by 1967 the bank had more than $2 billion in assets, making it the 18th largest bank in the United States. Gund also served on the board of directors of another 30 national and multinational corporations. But despite the urban nature of his work, Gund never lost his affection for the Old West. He used his income to collect a large number of works of art which depicted the American West, including works by Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Remington, and Charles Marion Russell.

George Gund died of leukemia at the Cleveland Clinic on November 15, 1966. He was interred at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.

His foundation also has a nice biography of him.

Gunds--quot-Finest-quot--Beer-Labels-Gund-Brewing-Co

Historic Beer Birthday: Albert C. Houghton

April 13, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Albert C. Houghton (April 13, 1844-August 11, 1914). He was born in Stamford, Vermont, the eldest of nine children. He also appears to have served as a private in the Massachusetts 16th Infantry, Company C during the Civil War. His father was Andrew Jackson Houghton, who founded the A.J. Houghton & Co. Brewery with John A. Kohl in 1870, in Boston, Massachusetts. Albert took over the brewery and was its president after his father died in 1892. It was also known as the Vienna Brewery at various points of its history, before closing for good in 1918 when Prohibition went into effect.

Here is his biography, from Wikipedia:

Albert Charles Houghton was born April 13, 1844 in Stamford, Vermont to James and Chloe Houghton. He was the youngest son in a family of nine children. Houghton married Cordelia J. Smith, of Stamford, Vermont in 1866. They had four children, all of whom studied in Germany.
Houghton died as a result of injuries five days after a car accident that also killed his daughter Mary and her friend Sybil Cady Hutton. The chauffeur, John Widders, killed himself the next morning.
Houghton was engaged in various business dealings. Before he was 21, he founded the Houghton Chemical Works of Stamford with his brother J.R. Houghton. By 1868, he was doing work in real estate and operating the Parker Mill in North Adams, Massachusetts. Houghton and his family moved to North Adams permanently in 1870.
Houghton owned the North Pownal Manufacturing Company in North Pownal, Vermont. He became president of the Arnold Print Works in 1881. He was president and owner of the A.J. Houghton Brewing Company of Boston, upon the death of founder A.J. Houghton in 1892. In 1877, he bought the Williamstown Manufacturing Company. In 1878 he bought the Eclipse Mill and Beaver Mill, both cotton manufacturing mills. In 1895 he became director of the Boston & Albany Railroad. He was also a trustee of Williams College, and sat on the boards of various banks. Five days prior to his death in 1914, Houghton purchased the Mausert Block.
In 1868, Houghton was a member of the state legislature in Vermont, representing his hometown of Searsburg. When North Adams was incorporated as a city in 1895, Mr. Houghton was nominated by “all parties” and elected its first mayor.

And this account is from Ghost Adventures Wiki:

Albert Charles Houghton, born 1844 in nearby Vermont, made his fortune as president of Arnold Printworks, the largest employer in North Adams. He was elected the town’s first mayor in 1896, and the Houghton Mansion was built for his family.
On August 1st, 1914, Mr. Houghton and his daughter Mary Houghton decided to go to Bennington for a pleasure drive in a brand-new Pierce-Arrow touring car, driven by the family’s longtime chauffeur John Widders and accompanied by a doctor, Mrs. Hutton from New York. About 9:30AM, they came up what is now Oak Hill Road and came across a team of horses parked on the right side of the road. Widders turned the car left around it, but the engine started to race at a shoulder bend and the car toppled down a hillside, rolling over three times until it came to rest in an upright position in a farmer’s field. Mr. Houghton and Widders escaped with minor injuries, but Mrs. Hutton was killed instantly and Mary Houghton died of her injuries at 3:00PM.
Mr. Houghton, heartbroken over the death of his daughter, died in the mansion 10 days after the accident.

So why was Houghton’s biography on a Ghost Adventures website? Well, that’s more fully explained in yet another website article with the provocative title “Photo Tour: Investigate the haunted, historic Houghton Mansion in North Adams, Mass.” There’s also quite a few photos of the Houghton mansion there, too.

On August 1st, 1914 Widders was driving A.C. Houghton, his daughter Mary and a family friend, Sybil Hutton to Vermont. They came upon a road crew on a mountain road, so Widders swerved to the edge of the road to avoid them. The vehicle hit a soft shoulder and rolled down a steep embankment, flipping over 3 times.
Sybil died at the scene and Mary Houghton died enroute to the hospital. Both John Widders and A.C. Houghton suffered minor injuries. The next day, in the early morning hours, John Widders was found dead in the barn behind the mansion. He had committed suicide by shooting himself with a horse pistol, unable to forgive himself for the accident that he felt was his fault. Albert Houghton died just 9 days later, some say of a broken heart.
The tragic accident and subsequent suicide have had a deep and lasting effect on the property at 172 Church Street in North Adams. It is said to this day that the home is still occupied by the spirits of A.C. Houghton and his daughter Mary. Mary is usually seen on the upper-floors of the mansion, while Albert still enjoys the run of the beautiful, historic home. The tragic John Widders is also said to be seen, in the form of shadows throughout the property.
The property was eventually sold to the Masons in 1920. They soon erected a huge Masonic Temple at the rear of the house. The mansion is still in use as a Masonic Temple today and is maintained by the Lafayette Graylock Masonic Lodge A.F. & A.M. and the Naomi Chapter of the Eastern Star — non-profit associations that support many charitable organizations.

Portrait of A.C. Houghton by Paul K. M. Thomas, completed in 1915.

Beer Birthday: Andreas Fält

April 13, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the 51st birthday of Andreas Fält, who was the Brand Development Manager at Prime Beer Russia, but more recently became the export manager for Porterhouse Brew Co. I know him, like most people I suspect, from judging together all over the world, as he’s on the international beer judging circuit. Andreas is actually Swedish, but lives in Leeds, England, with his family. He’s a great ambassador for beer, and certainly one of my favorite people in the beer industry. Join me in wishing Andreas a very happy birthday.

Andreas-Falt-1 — Me, with Stephen Beaumont, Andreas, and Luc De Raedemaeker. Our last night in Mechelen before judging ended for the 2018 Brussels Beer Challenge, when a healthy percentage of the judges ended up congregated at Den Stillen Genieter, which had a pretty decent beer list though we did our best to liberate as many bottles as we could.

Andreas-Falt-2 — Me, Andreas, and Rick Kempen late one night during the Brussels Beer Challenge.

Andreas-Falt-3 — My table at the Brussels Beer Challenge a few years ago, with Andreas at the center.

Andreas-Falt-4 — Taking a motley crew after dinner to my favorite Brussels frites place, Cafe Georgette, including Andreas (on the left).

Beer Birthday: Julie Johnson

April 13, 2022 By Jay Brooks 7 Comments

Today is the birthday of Julie Johnson, who until several years ago was the editor of All About Beer magazine, headquartered in Durham, North Carolina. Julie is without a doubt one of the nicest people in the industry and a pleasure to work with. Plus she likes odd little German trolls almost as much as I do. Hers is pink, mine’s silver. Don’t ask — or do, if you’d like a long, rambling travel story. Join me in wishing Julie a very happy birthday.

Julie with Ray Daniels at Lagunitas during the Journalism Retreat before CBC the year it was in San Francisco.

Maureen Ogle, Jack McAuliffe and Julie at CBC in San Francisco earlier a few years ago.

Julie and me at the Rare Beer Tasting at Wynkoop several years back. (photo by Christopher Miller)

Julie provides guest vocals on Hop This Town at the Falling Rock in Denver, Colorado during GABF week in 2007.

Historic Beer Birthday: Joseph Bramah

April 13, 2022 By Jay Brooks Leave a Comment

Today is the birthday of Joseph Bramah (April 13, 1748-December 9, 1814). Bramah was an English engineer, and inventor, whose most famous invention was the hydraulic press. But he also made improvements and created a practical beer engine, creating his beer pump and engine inventions between 1785 and 1797.

Another summary of his achievements is quite flattering:

English engineer and inventor whose lock manufacturing shop was the cradle of the British machine-tool industry. Central in early Victorian lockmaking and manufacturing, he influenced almost every mechanical trade of the time. Like Henry Ford, his influence was probably greater for the manufacturing processes he developed, than the product itself. He took out his first patent on a safety lock (1784) and in 1795 he patented his hydraulic press, known as the Bramah press, used for heavy forging. He devised a numerical printing machine for bank notes and was one of the first to suggest the practicability of screw propellers and of hydraulic transmission. He invented milling and planing machines and other machine tools, a beer-engine (1797), and a water-closet.

As for the actual patents, there were two of them. The first was in 1785 and was for what he called a “beer pump.” Then, in 1793 he was granted Patent No. 2196 for his improved version, now referred to as a “beer engine.” It was actually a Dutchman, John Lofting, who had first invented the beer pump in 1688, but Bramah’s were more refined and practical, and more importantly, patented. Curiously, Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History lists the patent dates as 1787 and 1797, so it’s unclear which are the correct dates.

In this engraving, entitled Men of Science Living in 1807-8, Bramah is on the left side, the tenth one in the back from the left. He’s the one with the wide sash across his chest and the star-shaped badge on his jacket. Others include Joseph Banks, Henry Cavendish and James Watt.

There’s even a J.D. Wetherspoon’s pub in his home town of Bramley called The Joseph Bramah