Tuesday’s ad is for Amstel beer, before they added the “light.” It’s from 1961 and also has KLM Airlines as a part of the ad, perhaps a partnership ad. It would appear they were trying to position Amstel as a high-end premium beer.
Beer In Ads #120: Reszveny Serfozode
Monday’s ad is from Részvény Serfözöde, a Budapest, Hungary brewery. The illustration was done by Paul Foldes. I’m not entirely sure when it was done. I chose it because today is Memorial Day, and the idea depicted that beer could end a war is an attractive one. I believe the scene’s supposed to be during World War I.
And below is a detail of the artwork from the ad.
Beer In Art #78: Peter Paul Ruben’s The Village Fete
Today’s work of art is by one the most famous artists to ever paint: Peter Paul Rubens. Rubens “was a prolific seventeenth-century Flemish Baroque painter, and a proponent of an extravagant Baroque style that emphasized movement, color, and sensuality. He is well-known for his Counter-Reformation altarpieces, portraits, landscapes, and history paintings of mythological and allegorical subjects.” Today’s painting was done toward the end of his life, around 1635-38, though others believe he may have started it much earlier in 1620, but then returned to it later. It’s known as the Village Fête, and sometimes as the Village Wedding.
The paintings hangs in the Louvre, which describes it as follows:
The picture, painted late in the artist’s life, around 1635-38, is manifestly neo-Bruegelian in inspiration. The pig’s snout poking out of the sty on the right is an ancient symbol of gluttony (gula). According to those who date the picture in the 1620s, the landscape was painted before the figures, which are in Rubens’ late lyrical style.
This monumental picture, also called the Village Wedding, is in the northern tradition of depictions of village fêtes. Pioneered by Pieter Bruegel, the enormous popularity of this genre contributed to the renown of the Flemish School. These compositions often had a moral message, denouncing the baseness of the human condition by showing it in all its excesses. However, even though a pig’s snout — a symbol of gluttony — can be seen poking out of the sty in the foreground, denouncing vices was not Rubens’ main preoccupation.
While there’s dancing going on on the right half of the painting, the lower left is consumed with drinking beer. You can see it better in the detail of the painting below.
You can see all of Ruben’s works online at the Complete Works or Peter Paul Rubens. There’s also a biography on Wikipedia, and more information at the Web Museum, the Art Archive , ArtCyclopedia and Olga’s Gallery.
Guinness Ad #20: Opening Time
Our 20th Guinness poster by John Gilroy features the iconic toucan, who’s just opened his bottle of Guinness with his impressive beak. The tagline reads “Opening Time is Guinness Time.”
Beer In Ads #119: Schlitz Your Thirst Can Feel
Friday’s ad is another one for Schlitz, from 1955. The slogan is “Your Thirst Can ‘Feel’ the Difference!” at the top and on the bottom of the ad it’s “If you like beer you’ll love Schlitz.” I love the happy looking man in the gray flannel suit holding the very colorful six-pack of 16 oz. bomber cans.
Beer In Ads #118: Schlitz Move Up To Quality
Thursday’s ad is for Schlitz, I think from the late 1950s. The slogan, “Move up to quality — Move up to Schlitz!” Is it just me or is that hand the reason they now use hand models? And check out the swanky cuff link of a fish the guy is wearing.
Beer In Ads #117: Pabst Good Old-Time Flavor
Wednesday’s ad is for Pabst, since they’ve been in the news lately. Since the ad is so retro, trying to evoke an earlier time, I can’t be sure when exactly it was created, though my wild guess is sometime between the 1950s and 70s. But it’s certainly meant to mimic the ads of the later 1800s.
Beer In Ads #116: Birra Metzger
Tuesday’s ad is for an Italian brewer, Birra Metzger, from Torino. They were founded in 1848 but closed in 1975. The ad is from the 1920s.
Beer In Ads #115: Artois’ Colder Glass
Monday’s ad is either an old ad, or one made to look that way. I can’t be sure. My money’s on old, but who knows. It’s for Artois and is crowing about their new glass designed to keep the beer colder. The glass also has the slogan “Pass On Something Good” across it.
What Is Beer?
A provocative question to be sure, but not one I’ll even try to answer. Instead, take a look at how that question was answered 70 years ago by the the United Breweries Industrial Foundation in an ad they ran in the January 15, 1940 issue of Life Magazine. On page 69 of Life, they answer the question “what is beer?” eleven different ways.
At the bottom right, there’s also an address where you can send away for a booklet with the “facts.” I’d love to see a copy of that booklet. It’s interesting what they were probably trying to accomplish with the ad, shining a light on all of the positive aspects of beer and distancing themselves from the negative, no doubt with many people at that time still remembering the prohibition era criminal elements. That’s why they argue that brewers want “to clean-up or close-up the small minority of law-violating places which abuse the license to sell beer. The brewers want to protect your right to buy beer in decent, respectable surroundings.” It makes sense, of course, that the new post-prohibition brewing industry wants to get off on the right foot, reminding people what good there is in their continuing to be in business, especially while the prohibitionist organizations were still hard at work, despite being dealt the near-death blow of prohibition being over-turned less than a decade before.
Below are close-ups of the eleven answers proffered to the question “what is beer?”
Employment Manager
Tax Collector
Farmer
Dietician
Business Man
Housewife
Doctor
Police Chief
Brewer
Poet
Average Citizen
I just love the fact that “Poet” is included. It makes me want to write more poetry. And how many of you know a brewer who looks, or dresses, like this one? But most of these are just hilarious, though undoubtedly true, they’re statements you rarely see stated in ads nowadays. Still, I’d really like to see more pro-beer ads today. I think we need them now more than ever.