Sunday’s ad is for Haffenreffer & Co., Inc., from 1946. This is from a series of billboard ads from around the same time I stumbled upon, though I’m sure the originals in color are more spectacular. In this ad for Pickwick Ale and Pickwick Ale Light, they’re advertising like that scene in The Blues Brothers, when they play in a redneck bar. When one of the Blues Brothers asks what kind of music they play here, a waitress replies “we got both kinds: country AND western.” Same deal with the choices presented here, your “pick” is between regular adjunct ale or light adjunct ale, which according to the label is “lighter than regular Pickwick.”
I think generally it’s accepted that the first true light beer was Gablinger light in the late 1960’s. This morphed, through various transactions and tweaks, into Miller Lite (mid-70’s).
Could this Pickwick light ale of decades earlier have been an earlier low carb/low calorie beer? Hard to know what “light” meant here.
Gary
My grandfather, Burton B. Armstrong was the commercial artist who produced this newspaper ad and many others. He lived in Jamaica Plain near the Hefenreffer Brewery which was one of his one of his larger ad accounts. Unfortunately, since the ads were intended for newspapers they were done in black and white only. I have some copies of the proofs. Of note is an ad showing a major league ballpark in the background indicating perhaps that Heffenreffer had a vendor agreement with the Red Sox or more likely the National League Boston Braves who were located the Boston University Huntington Ave ball park not to far from the Brewery. I hope to load photos of 4 of the proofs to my facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/gerard.armstrong.37