Saturday’s ad is for Phoenix Bier, from the 1930s. 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 was created for Phoenix Brouwerij, which was located in Amersfoort, which is part of the province of Utrecht, in the Netherlands. It was founded in 1872 as the Amersfoortsche Beiersch-Bier-Brouwerij, but changed its name to the Phoenix Brouwerij in 1890. In 1961, Phoenix was merged into the United Dutch Breweries d’Oranjeboom, but a few years later, in 1967, that was taken over as the Dutch branch of the British Allied Breweries, who closed the Phoenix brewery and demolished it in 1970. This poster was created by Dutch graphic designer Nicolaas Petrus de Koo, who signed his work N.P. de Koo. At some point in the 1920s or 30s he “became the in-house designer for the Phoenix Brouwerij Amersfoort for which he made price lists, brochures, calendars, posters, wall signs, beer coasters and labels.”
