Sunday’s ad is for United Brewers Industrial Foundation, from the late 1940s. I’m not exactly sure what year, but it’s the year after whatever year the brewing industry paid $400,000,000 in taxes. Two men are looking for a place to grab a beer, and decide the bar must meet four criteria:
- The food is good!
- It’s a clean, pleasant inviting place
- They obey the law …
- And they serve good beer and ale
I know I always wonder if bar owners are following the law before I’ll even consider visiting them. Don’t you? The other oddity is that the UBIF also announced a “clean-up or close-up” program to improve or get rid of bar bars in order to raise the standard of all of them. The idea, undoubtedly, was to change the pre-prohibition perception of bars, especially when it was still fresh in the minds of most Americans. Still, I know I’ll go to a place meeting those conditions, though I suppose the last one os the most important to me.
Underage kids always will look for places that are taking the risk to serve them (which is far less prevalent now than in the late 60’s). When I was under 21 (legal age to drink anything in MD; in DC, beer & wine were legal for age 18), there was a beer joint (w/free peanuts, shells on the floor) just off the U of MD campus that never carded until after 6PM. It was somewhat dark inside, so one could drink somewhat incognito – & it never was busy any of the times I had an illegal schooner or 2 of Bud while killing time.
These days, I’d avoid like the plague places that don’t card/are lax about it – being an “old fart” certainly alters your mindset about such things!