Sunday’s ad is entitled Wedding Anniversary, and the illustration was done in 1948 by Douglass Crockwell. It’s #22 in a series entitled “Home Life in America,” also known as the Beer Belongs series of ads that the United States Brewers Foundation ran from 1945 to 1956. In this ad, an older couple is celebrating their wedding anniversary, and is being toasted with beer, presumably by their own kids, grandkids and other relatives. Granddad has a beer, but curiously Grandma does not, what’s up with that?
Nice poster. My read is, her beer is left untouched, almost, on the table, near the brown bottle. His beer (grand-dad’s) is from the green bottle and he is holding the glass in his chair.
It would show the older lady is decorous, taking a sip but maybe not finishing the beer, suitable for her generation.
There used to be a rough rule (60s or earlier) that ale came in green bottles, beer (lager) in brown. This was before the import green bottle phase got going with, Heineken, Beck’s, etc.
So gran-dad is drinking ale, which being the older form, kind of fits the scene.
Gary
Actually the green bottle appears capped, so maybe its content is not in gran-dad’s glass, but the full glass left unattended is still the old lady’s, I think.
It’s a nice poster, reminiscent of the Norman Rockwell, Steven Dohanos style. We have a lost a lot since then.
Gary