Monday’s ad is for Black Horse Ale And Porter, from maybe the 1940s. From the late 1800s until the 1970s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. This poster is a little bit of a departure because I wanted to feature a Porter since my son Porter’s birthday is tomorrow. It was made for the Dawes Brewery located in Lachine, a borough within the city of Montreal on the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It was founded in 1811 by Thomas Dawes, and was continued by his family after his death until 1909, when it was one of sixteen breweries that merged to become National Breweries Ltd. In 1952, the group was sold to Canadian Breweries and renamed the Dow Brewery. This poster was created by English-Canadian painter and commercial illustrator Arthur Henry Hider. At first, I thought it was signed “Rookwood Granite,” but that’s actually a type of Percheron, which is a type of draft horse that originated in France, and also the type owned by the brewery.
