Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Beer In Ads #17: Budweiser, The Hostess

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Thursday’s ad is from 1892 and is for Budweiser. I assume what she’s wearing was fashionable in the day, but I’d say that dress is a little too busy, especially against that garish background. There’s a small title at the bottom that reads “The Hostess,” perhaps suggesting this was part of a series? It’s hard to see in this size, but if you click through to see it full-sized, you can see she’s wearing a necklace of the Anheuser-Busch “A” and eagle logo. And take a look at the odd-looking crown and the red stripe below it. I’m no breweriana expert, but that looks very different to me, too.

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Beer In Ads #16: Pabst, What’ll You Have?

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Wednesday’s ad is a Christmas ad — because today is Old Christmas Day, when “on the 12th day after Christmas, Christians celebrate the visit of the Magi, the first Gentile recognition of Christ.” It’s also known as Epiphany, Three Kings Day and Twelfth Day. If I had to guess, I’d say this ad was from the mid-to-late fifties. The tagline “What’ll You Have?” was used by Pabst for a number of years and it appears it a number of their ads from that time period. Happy Christmas.

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Beer In Ads #15: Bass, The Drink Of The Empire

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Tuesday’s ad is another oldie, based on the label, at least. I don’t know much about it either, but I love the association Bass is trying to make. While it’s obvious that they’re trying to evoke emotions of pride, it still comes off a little colonial and warlike. Of course, that may be because I live in a former colony. But with the tag line, “The Drink of the Empire,” I think I’m safe in saying the ad is somewhat imperial in its tone.

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Beer In Ads #14: Call For A Valley Brew

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Monday’s ad is one I have a reproduction of hanging in my office, a gift from my friend Steve Altimari, who is the brewmaster at Valley Brewing in Stockton, Calif. Valley Brewing sells the posters and uses the image in some of the promotional materials, but it’s 50s advertisement from the old El Dorado Brewery, a brewery that had been in Stockton from 1855 until it closed for good in 1955. You gotta love old cheesecake.

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Beer In Art #59: Kitti Narod’s Rivers of Amber

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Today’s works of art is by a young Thai artist named Kitti Narod. He was commissioned by Chang Beer, the best-selling beer in Thailand, to paint an “interpretation” of their label. He came up with Rivers of Amber.

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Here’s a description of the work:

In Bangkok artist Kitti Narod’s commissioned interpretation of the Thai favourite Chang Beer bottle and logo, an exuberant fountain of golden beer escapes the confines of its glass bottle and Narod’s painted encircling frame to flood the canvas with waves of vital refreshment. Four mystically illuminated corner elephants echo the prized white Thai elephants of the brand logo. Within the painted sphere, the forest, river, rainbow and starry sky exude energy to match the eddies of the amber torrent.

I love the look of this piece, especially having just watched the color-saturated Sita Sings the Blues. A lot of art from this region of the world uses dense, colorful designs where every square inch of the canvas is used.

Narod is appranetly a self-taught artist who “creates unique paintings of wildlife with brilliant dots of color.” According to a biography on Absolute Arts:

Kitti Narod’s acrylic dot paintings are inspired by Australian Aboriginal techniques. As a graduate artist working on collage paintings, Kitti came upon the dots on dots Australian Aboriginal art and found that this spoke to him personally as an artist. In Narod’s work, themes from nature, flowers, fruits, leaves, waves, trees, the sea and sea creatures are interwoven in colour schemes drawn from the blue of the sky and the warm palette inspired by Kitti’s tropical sun. This exceptionally versatile artist also produces dynamic Urban Abstracts, collages on a Chinese theme and, in collaboration with his “mom”, cutting edge textile compositions.

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The Chang beer label, owned by ThaiBev. In Thai, the word “Chang” means elephant. Chang also has an interesting looking Thai Good Food Guide online.

You can see much more of her colorful artwork at Easy Art, the Magic Art Gallery and Thai Fine Art Online. You can purchase prints of his work at several online shops, including the X-Ray Mag Store or Easy Art.

Photoshop Fun With Beer: A Time Suck

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The humor website Freaking News, whose tagline is “News Photoshop Contests,” apparently has held several contests involving beer, challenging people to create funny pictures using Photoshop. In some cases they offer an image to start with and manipulate and in others they just suggest a theme. Below are some of my favorites from the Cold Draft Beer contest.

FN-Boom-Beer
Boom!

FN-Beer-Lake
Beer Lake.

FN-Drunk-Bouguereau
Drunk Bouguereau. The original is La Petite Mendiante (The Little Beggar) painted by William-Adolphe Bouguereau in 1880.

You can see many more beer-altered photos in these contest galleries. Warning: it’s a time suck.

  • Beer Endorsement Pictures
  • Beer Mug Pictures
  • Beer Olympics
  • Cold Draft Beer
  • Pint of Beer Pictures

Beer In Ads #13: Schlitz Here’s One I Can Understand

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It’s the first day of the new year, of course, and this year I’ll be highlighting beer ads every week day — Monday through Friday — instead of just once a week on Thursdays. I just have too many already collected that I think are wonderful and merit sharing, so I decided to make 2010 the year of the beer ad here at the Brookston Beer Bulletin. Some will be old, some from mid-century (the 50s, 60 and 70s) and other will be more contemporary. The only unifying theme is that I think they’re artistic, more clever than the usual beer ad or have something else going for them. Feel free to suggest an ad you like and, if I agree, I’ll put it in the queue.

The year’s first ad, from Schlitz, was published in 1952. I don’t know who the artist was, but it looks like many other Schlitz ads from the same period, so it may have been a house illustrator. But it seemed appropriate for today because it’s set in an art museum, where I believe all of these ads belong.

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Here’s One I Can Understand

This man may not be an art expert, but he knows fine beer when he tastes it. There are millions of people like him … people who like the taste of Schlitz so much that no other beer is in the picture for them.