Two years ago I decided to concentrate on Bock ads for awhile. Bock, of course, may have originated in Germany, in the town of Einbeck. Because many 19th century American breweries were founded by German immigrants, they offered a bock at certain times of the year, be it Spring, Easter, Lent, Christmas, or what have you. In a sense they were some of the first seasonal beers. “The style was later adopted in Bavaria by Munich brewers in the 17th century. Due to their Bavarian accent, citizens of Munich pronounced ‘Einbeck’ as ‘ein Bock’ (a billy goat), and thus the beer became known as ‘Bock.’ A goat often appears on bottle labels.” And presumably because they were special releases, many breweries went all out promoting them with beautiful artwork on posters and other advertising. With Spring approaching, there are so many great examples that I’m going to post two a day for a few months.

Tuesday’s ad was created for another Heute Bock, which was published around 1880. Heute in German means “today” and humorously Google translates the full text as “Today I’m Crazy.” This poster was made for an unspecified German brewery since in 1880 Alsace was part of Germany. The chromolithograph is marked as “413” although it’s identified not by the initials “C.A.W.,” but “Burckardt’s Nachfolger, Wissembourg, Germany,” according to one source, although Google translate gives this as the text at the bottom of the poster: “Printed and published by C. Burkard’s Successors (R. Ackermann), Weissenburg (Alsace).” And another source claims it was “Published by Wentzel,” though no idea where they got that from.