Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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The Robert Smith India Pale Ale Brewery

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The ad I featured yesterday in my long-running Beer In Ads series was for The Robert Smith Ale Brewing Co. of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The brewery was only called by that name from 1896 until it closed when Prohibition began. From 1887 until 1896, the brewery was called The Robert Smith India Pale Ale Brewing Co. While searching for information for the post last night, I happened upon a cool bit of history regarding the brewery from 1889. The Map Collection at the Free Library of Philadelphia includes a survey map of The Robert Smith India Pale Ale Brewing Co. created by Ernest Hexamer and included in the Hexamer General Surveys, Volume 24, published in 1889.

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The brewery was located in West Philadelphia, in the 24th Ward, at N. 38th St, Girard Ave and Philadelphia and the Reading Railroad. The survey also includes some interesting tidbits in the text at the right, a laundry list of architectural facts and figures. For example, the brewery was powered by steam, had two copper kettles — a 100 bbl and 200 bbl vessel — and employed 17 people. Below is a blow-up of the brewery illustration, showing the brewery property and grounds.

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Beer In Ads #1644: The Robert Smith Ale Brewing Co.

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Monday’s ad is for The Robert Smith Ale Brewing Co., from sometime after 1896 but before Prohibition. From what I can tell, while the brewery was founded in 1774, it wasn’t known as The Robert Smith Ale Brewing Co. until 1896, when it acquired by C. Schmidt & Sons and operated as one of their divisions (although another source claims Schmidt’s took over the Robert Smith brewery in 1881). The casks stacked to the left in the ad each have a different beer printed in them, suggesting this was the line of beers offered by the brewery at the time of the ad. The beer’s listed are Tiger Head I.P.A., India Pale, Burton, English Pale, XXX, Old Musty, Brown Stout and Imperial Burton. Only Tiger Head I.P.A. and the Brown Stout also have “Bottling” printed in smaller letters at the bottom of the head of the cask, so I suspect those were the two beers they may have offered in bottles.

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Beer In Ads #1643: Give Yourself A Break

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Sunday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1956. When you’re sitting in the dark watching nature documentaries, feasting on the carcass of a chicken (or possibly turkey) with some cheese between two slices of bread, you’ll definitely want a cold beer. So “Give Yourself A Break” and have some “late in the evening.” I hope Bambi makes it out the forest.

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Beer In Ads #1642: Cool It With The Friendmaker

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Saturday’s ad is for Reading Premium, from 1969. This is from my hometown brewery, which closed in 1976. But as regular readers will know, it was a “friendly” beer, having used the slogan “The Friendly Beer For Modern People” since the 1950s. It’s probably my favorite beer slogan of all-time. I guess by the late 1960s it was sounding old-fashioned, so they tried to make it sound a little more groovy by calling it the shorter “Friendmaker.” The ad is for a six-pack of pint bottles — “glass cans” — which is “a right beer, a day beer, a night beer … a drink it any time beer!”

reading-1969-friendmaker

Beer In Ads #1641: Wiener Beer

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Friday’s ad is for Blatz, from 1904. Even at a time when people seemed to speak with more poetry, it’s hard to understand how Blatz’s “Wiener Beer” didn’t catch on to become an iconic beer. But the ad copy is pretty hilarious. “The unprecedented popularity of Blatz Wiener is due to its pronounced individuality — that indescribable honest flavor that always means ‘Blatz’ — that delightful Wiener ‘smack’ that goes straight to the spot. Drink it for beer character — For health’s sake drink it.” Pure poetry.

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Beer In Ads #1639: Black & Tan Babies

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Wednesday’s ad is for Anheuser-Busch’s Black & Tan, from 1899. I’m sure this seemed like a cute idea at the turn of two centuries ago, around 116 years from now, but to our current sensibilities, it certainly looks odd. Back in 1995, A-B reintroduced their Black & Tan as part of their “American Originals” series, but this ad is from its original release, when it was “prepared only by Anheuser-Busch Brew’g Ass’n.” The patriotic ad shows a pair of American flags for most of the background behind the label, with a military camp showing beneath the flags at the bottom of the ad. The army “volunteers” referred to appear to be nine naked babies whose skin is either tan or black. And I’m not sure why there’s a dog — a black and tan doberman? — barking at them at the bottom of the label. I’m sure naked colored babies with rifles made sense in 1899, but I can’t imagine the ad being green-lit today.

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Beer In Ads #1638: In The Barremolen

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Tuesday’s ad is for Heineken, from 1976. The ad shows a woman in a traditional Dutch costume pouring a bottle of Heineken, apparently inside of a famous Dutch windmill known as the Barremolen. It’s located in Zoeterwoude-Rijndijk, Zuid-Holland, and according to the Dutch Windmill Database, it was built in 1661. The windmill, besides being a symbol of the Netherlands, is also located on the site of one of Heineken’s brewery, so it certainly made sense to feature it in their advertising.

Heineken-1976-barremolen

Beer In Ads #1637: A Doctor’s Reasons

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Monday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1904. The ads shows an interesting black and white illustration of a doctor talking with his patient, with a bottle of Schlitz and two glasses between them. The text below imagines the conversation they’re having, about Schlitz being pure and doesn’t call biliousness. Plus the drawing framed by the hops looks pretty cool.

Schlitz-1904-doctors-reasons

Beer In Ads #1636: Every Sip … Like A Trip To Snow Country

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Sunday’s ad is for Genesee Beer, from 1970. “Every sip … like a trip to snow country,” with a cold mountain stream still filled with ice, but slowly starting to thaw. Who doesn’t want their beer to evoke that setting? Assuming, of course, the beer hasn’t actually frozen or is so close to freezing that we can no longer taste it. That would be bad.

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