Wednesday’s ad is for Schlitz, most likely from the 1950s. I assume there was likely text with this ad, but I have only the art. But I like it this way, nice and simple. Cool art featuring three people enjoying the outdoors, with two cans of Schlitz in view and the logo hanging in the sky.
Tuesday’s ad is for Budweiser, from around the mid-1950s and features a beach scene at night, with a lighthouse in the background. Five couples are around a fire on the beach, or are on their way to it. An aluminum cooler in the foreground holds cans of Bud and the whole scene has the slogan “Treat Yourself A Little Better!”
Monday’s ad is for Blatz, and is a toast from 1952. I love the positioning of the man and woman toasting one another above the Blatz triangle. Below that is the slogan “Milwaukee’s Finest Beer.” Nice and understated.
Today’s works of art are by an illustrator apparently living in the Bay Area, Erik Olsen. I say apparently, because a number of the links from his blogs are dead ends, and the faux beer poster’s I’m highlighting here were abandoned in 2006 after only three posts on that blog, Faux Posters. He created three posters as an homage to the great beer posters on the early 20th century. There he described the idea for the project:
It’s a tribute to some of the great poster designs in the early twentieth century. (Specifically those early French beer posters) Our first series is focused on the theme “beer”, each series of 12 prints will be focused on a new topic with limited prints runs. We have many sizes of prints available, everything for the beginner collector to the serious collector. Stay tuned as we add new Images and new themes to our gallery as we design more Faux Prints!
Unfortunately, only these three were done, beginning with the monster below.
Bete Biere translates as “Beast Beer,” with the slogan “Ugly But Delicious.”
Biere de Sirene, essentially the Siren’s Beer and the slogan is “Faire attention a l’Appel” or “Heed the Call.”
“Biere Prehistorique,” simply Prehistoric Beer, “Aged to Perfection.”
The first and the third are available for purchase as a poster, but it’s looks like he abandoned the project before the Mermaid was made available.
You can read Olsen’s biography and see his resume. There’s also a portfolio at his personal website and a few more on Coroflot.
This is a strange one I stumbled on while searching for something else. It’s about a carrot beer, which isn’t strange in and of itself. I remember reading that turnip beers weren’t uncommon centuries ago, so why not carrots? Anyway, apparently there’s a high-end fashion store in San Francisco called Carrots. They sell primarily women’s clothes but recently added a men’s fashion line. So they hired an ad agency, Pereira & O’Dell, to help them reach male customers. Here’s what they came up with, according to Dieline:
The objective was to create a buzz around this high-end fashion boutique (CARROTS) and specifically around their men’s line, driving new male customers into the store. We created a limited edition, designer beer made from carrots. We brewed the beer, handcrafted the bottle wraps, and applied the labels. The 22(oz.) burlap-wrapped bottles were hand-delivered as gifts to specifically targeted men and the 12 oz. beers were served at CARROTS-sponsored events and in-store to enhance men’s shopping experiences. Among the hundreds that received the bottle as a gift and the ones that tried it in the store, many people actually placed orders for beer to take home, turning a unique promotional item into a sexy and successful new product. Not to mention creating a buzz around the store.
I guess I don’t understand metrosexuals enough or the type of men who might shop at Carrots. While I understand using beer to attract a male customer, I don’t see how a carrot beer would be the best choice to make for that purpose. I get the joke, but still. According to the label, it’s a Belgian Wit. So perhaps carrot juice was added? I know of of other wits that have been made with orange juice. It also says that the ad agency brewed the beer, which I find hard to believe. Since they also claim to have sold some of the beer, they’d have needed to have a brewing license or have had it done by a licensed brewer and paid the taxes on it. There’s not one mention of the beer itself on either Beer Advocate or Rate Beer, which is also surprising given how unusual a carrot beer is. You’d think somebody would have tried it, just for that reason alone.
I’m also not sure why the rabbit is dead. The packaging is not without its charms, but I’m just not sure it makes much sense if you stop to think about it. But it’s still odd that I discovered two dead rabbit beers the same week. There’s not much chance of trying it apparently, as the Carrots website doesn’t mention the beer at all, so it may no longer be available.
Our 28th Guinness poster by John Gilroy is part of the zoo animal series and features a elephant trying to take the zookeeper’s Guinness with the slogan “My Goodness — My Guinness.”
Friday’s ad is from 1963 and is for Hamm’s in the Land of Sky Blue Waters. The text is a wonderfully nonsensical mishmash of adspeak, beginning with “Refreshingly yours!,” whatever that means, followed by “Taste the secret Hamm’s has captured from nature’s purest waters.” Ooh, what could it be, what could it be? The answer, of course, is “BIG FRESH TASTE.” What great meaningless platitudes. And check out the head on that beer. Does that look like a comb over to anyone else?
Thursday’s ad is from 1951 and is for Goebel Beer, a brewery in Detroit, Michigan from 1873 to 1964. Through the mergermania of the latter half of the 20th century it ended up being owned by Stroh’s. They did a series of ads featuring beautiful landscapes with a glass of Goebel’s in the foreground. My favorite part of the text is “Goebel Beer — It’s Mello-ized.”
Wednesday’s ad is from the 1960 and is for Schlitz, featuring the slogan “Know the real joy good living … move up to Schlitz!” Some of the good living go-togethers include pretzels, popcorn, crackers and burgers.
Tuesday’s ad is from the 1950s and is for Schlitz, featuring a beautiful natural vista with a man holding up a glass of beer against it as backdrop. And the slogan, “Move up to quality — move up to Schlitz,” is kind of a hoot. But I certainly want to be in that spot with a beer, if indeed it’s even a real place.
