Thursday’s ad is another one for Blatz Pilsener Beer, this one from 1943. It’s for “discriminating people everywhere.” I do love the barley in the script “B,” that looks pretty cool. But my favorite is how they characterize the beer in the copy at the bottom. “Milwaukee’s Most Exquisite Beer.” There were apparently other “exquisite” beers in Milwaukee, but this one was the “most exquisite.”
Wednesday’s ad is for Blatz Old Heidelberg Beer, from 1940. It’s a “Special Pilsener Brewer,” which apparently means “it’s not bitter; it’s not sweet — it’s just want you want.” But I especially love their rationale for why you’ll love their “new clear glass bottle.” It “let’s you see what you’re drinking.”
Tuesday’s ad is another one for Schlitz, from 1946. Old or young, smart women apparently put bottles of Schlitz in baskets to buy at the grocery store. That, apparently, is “menu foresight.” But I love this bit of wisdom. “Serving Schlitz to your guests is like bringing out your best linen or silver — it says ‘Nothing’s too good for our friends!'”
Monday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1947. Showing an illustration of a backyard barbecue, two couples are having a fine day. One of the women has brought out a tray with enough glasses and bottles of Schlitz for everyone. And boy do the other three look happy, just staring at her with smiling blank looks on their faces. The other couple look like they could be the same person. But the text is great. After a story about it takes just the right amount of seasoning to make the steak taste perfect, they suggest that “it takes a gift of genius to lure shy flavors from their hiding places,” before bringing it back to Schlitz.
Sunday’s ad is for Kingsbeer Lager, from 1955. The brand was produced by Dow Breweries of Quebec, Canada. A simple ad, but “So Light! So Right!” is a pretty funny tagline. But it’s nothing compared to the other ad copy. “Rice brewed to the Canadian taste.” Ah, the Canadian taste.
Saturday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1955. And you thought the blue man group was a new phenomenon, but they were around and serving Schlitz — a.k.a. the World’s Most Famous Taste in Beer — way back in the Fifties. Honestly, I don’t quite understand why the guy is blue. But he does have another one of those magic bottles. It’s only half empty but it managed to completely fill two pilsner glasses.
Friday’s ad is for Ballantine Ale, from 1957. Wow, houses in the 1950s were very colorfully decorated. Look at the red flowers on white of the curtains compared to the multi-colored flowers on blue of the couch. The other oddity is who gives a soup party? That’s the only food on the table, not to mention next to the soup those look more like plates than bowls. A soup and beer tasting party? Maybe that was all the rage in 1957? But lastly, what’s with the creepy expression on the man in the tan jacket watching the woman in the blue dress ladle her soup as he pretends to be pouring his beer (but is really just holding the bottle at an angle)?
Thursday’s ad is another one for Miller Lite, again most likely from 1987 or 88. Also featuring comedian Joe Piscopo, who left Saturday Night Live in 1984, after four seasons. Around 1987 and 1988 he did television and print ads for Miller Lite. In this one, the tagline wonders about “A Word From ‘Python’ Piscopo Ex-Wrestler About Miller Lite.” That word? “Duh.” Another intellectually stimulating ad. It’s interesting that in yesterday’s drag queens ad, compared to today’s wrestlers in this ad that they look almost the same. Very colorful outfits, big hair (except when bald) and just as good looking. ANd it still doesn’t make the beer look any more appealing.
Wednesday’s ad is for Miller Lite, most likely from 1987 or 88. When comedian Joe Piscopo left Saturday Night Live in 1984, after four seasons, he did a few films — I did like Johnny Dangerously — and around 1987 and 1988 did television and print ads for Miller Lite. In this one, the tagline asks “Why ‘Helga’ Piscopo Ex-east German Swimmer Drinks Miller Lite.” The answer, surprisingly, is not because his taste buds were lost as a side effect to steroid use, but “To Keep His Girlish Figure.” Piscopo, in drag, and three similarly attired friends from a bad version of La Cage aux Folles, are drinking Miller Lite and winkingly making fun of it being diet beer. It certainly doesn’t make drinking the beer look terribly attractive so I’m a little unclear how effective it could have been.
Tuesday’s ad is from the English brewer’s “Beer is Best” campaign, from 1951. The campaign began in 1933, and ran for 30 years, and this one shows an idyllic country pub — The Axe and Compass — with a conspicuous church spire behind it. It almost appears that they’re trying to either suggest the pub as church or to associate the two as central to British life (both claims I agree with, BTW). But it looks so perfect one assumes it has to be a fictional, stylized version meant to invoke the romance of the country pub.
But not so fast. The Axe and Compass is an actual country inn located in Hemingford Abbots, 3 miles from St Ives, 6 miles from Huntingdon, and 12 miles from Cambridge. According to their website, the pub dates “back to the 15th century.”
But perhaps the artist did take a few liberties with perspective. That church spire that looms so large in the ad’s illustration appears much less imposing in the photograph from the pub’s website. And even more revealing, placing the inn at roughly the same angle as the drawing using Google Maps Street View, you can barely make out just the tip of the spire above the edge of the end of the pub’s roof past the back chimney. You have to go down Church Lane to see the church, and it doesn’t look nearly as large as it does in the illustration. Still, it’s an awesome image and I suspect it may have been one in a series, which would be even cooler. I know I want to go there now, and if I’m ever in the area, I’d definitely try to have a pint of Timothy Taylor there.
