Hoppy Halloween everybody. Here are a few spoof beer labels someone gave me recently that seemed perfect for the holiday. Enjoy.
Beery Halloween Costumes
With Halloween tomorrow, here is a gallery of beer-themed costumes for your amusement. Choices, choices.
Art In Ads #3: The King Of Spades
Today’s beer ad is another beautiful illustration, though I have no idea either what beer is being advertised but the artist is Herbert Leupin, a Swiss poster artist who lived from 1916 to 1999. This work was created in 1953. Whatever the brewing company, it’s a beautiful illustration. Perhaps if the King of Spades had offered his beer to Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, she might not have been so mean.
Beer In Ads #2: The Spanish Senorita
Today’s beer ad is a beautiful illustration by Achille Mauzan, an Italian artist who created many posters and other illustrations during the Art Deco period from the 1920s-40s and beyond. He was born Luciano Achille Mauzan in the French Riviera but spent most of his life in Italy and Argentina. This ad was created for an unknown Spanish beer, depicting a senorita, “adorned in customary garb, having this brand fixed atop a staff-like scepter.”
Pollan’s Rules To Eat By
Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, also a frequent contributor to the New York Times, in March asked for reader’s food rules. Over 2,600 people (2,681 as of this morning) posted a comment with their own food rules. On Tuesday, Pollan published a piece in the Times’ The Food Issue section of their magazine called Rules To Eat By where he discussed food rules philosophically and more practically. He’s still asking for your food rules, if you want to contribute. Some will be used in his forthcoming book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual.
Today, Pollan posted his 20 favorites from the thousands contributed. (Actually, the post is dated Oct. 11, so presumably it will be printed in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine but was posted online early. Also, thanks to Lisa Morrison, the Beer Goddess, for tweeting this my way.) Here are a few of my favorites from his list:
- Don’t yuck someone’s yum.
- Never eat something that is pretending to be something else.
- If you are not hungry enough to eat an apple, then you are not hungry.
- Avoid snack foods with the “oh” sound in their name: Doritos, Cheetos, Fritos, Tostitos, Hostess Ho Hos, etc.
Beer In Ads #1: Beer Belongs
For nearly a year now, every Sunday I’ve been exploring the intersection of the world of art with beer in my Beer In Art series. In searching for more art to showcase, I keep coming upon wondrous examples of advertising illustration. So far, I’ve been reluctant to use them because there’s plenty of fine art involving beer to keep my Sunday’s busy for quite some time. So instead, I figured I’d start featuring advertising art with beer as a separate series. Every Thursday I’ll highlight a beer ad, usually one from the past, that has some impressive artwork associated with it.
To begin, there can be no better choice than the Beer Belongs series that the United States Brewers Foundation (USBF) did from 1945-1956. The bulk of the series, known as the Home Life in America series, ran from 1946-1956 and included 120 numbered ads. In addition, there were several more unnumbered ads that both preceded the Home Life series and were run after its conclusion. They were so popular, even Mad Magazine did a spoof of the ads. You’ve probably seen them at flea markets and antique shows. I have several of them framed in my hallway. About a year ago, I became curious about how many ads were produced and tried to learn about their history. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much out there and after trolling auction sites and the internet for a good six months, off and on, I put together a complete list of all the ads. I collected graphic versions of all the ads with the help of the Beer Institute and got a taste of their origins and history by reading the minutes of meetings by the USBF and looking at old trade publications and books that mention the ad campaign.
That led to an article about this popular ad campaign in this month’s All About Beer magazine (the November 2009 issue, beginning at page 44). Obviously, All About Beer couldn’t run all of the ads, so I’ve put them into a Flickr gallery so you can view all 120 of them, possibly for the very first time anywhere. That’s at the bottom of this post. You can also see the rest of them (the ones that came before and after, along with the spoofs) at my Beer Belongs … Enjoy It! page. There, you can also read some more about the ads and find out a little bit more of their history, though I’d also encourage you to pick up the article in this month’s All About Beer, too, to get the full picture.
Here are three representative examples from the Home Life in America series:
#19 in the Home Life in America series. Week End in the Country, by Austin Briggs, 1948.
#42 in the Home Life in America series. Getting the Boat Ready, by Douglass Crockwell, 1950
#86 in the Home Life in America series. World Series U.S.A., by John Falter, 1953.
You can see all 120 of the Home Life in America series in the gallery below. This Flickr gallery is best viewed in full screen. To view it that way, after clicking on the arrow in the center to start the slideshow, click on the button on the bottom right with the four arrows pointing outward on it, to see the photos in glorious full screen. Once in full screen slideshow mode, click on “Show Info” to identify each ad’s title, artist and the year it ran.
Top 5 Beer Cities & America’s Best Beers
Men’s Journal yesterday released their annual lists of beer, both America’s Best Beers and The Top Five Beer Towns in the U.S.. Let’s look at the top five cities first.
- San Diego
- New York City
- Portland
- Philadelphia
- Chicago
It’s nice to see San Diego get some much-deserved love. While I think New York has improved in it’s beer scene over the last few years, I still have a hard time seeing it as being superior to Portland or Philly. Of course, Men’s Journal, like many periodicals, is published in New York and it’s been my experience (I lived there for several years once upon a time) that New Yorkers have an over-developed sense of their central position in the world. Naturally, I would have liked to see San Francisco on the list, but really it’s the Bay Area in total that’s most deserving, not that just the city’s scene isn’t good, too.
As for the beers they highlight this year, it’s a pretty good list, I’m happy to say. I especially love their introduction, where they reveal what many of us in the beer world have been saying for a few years now: “American craft brews now dominate” around the world. Finishing with “[n]ow there’s no reason to travel farther than your nearest specialty grocery store for a perfect beer.” If only the grocery chains would catch up and stock a wider range of good beer.
The list is divided into five broad categories; ales, lagers, dark beers, Belgian-style and cutting edge. Authors Christian DeBenedetti and Seth Fletcher then chose three beers of each kind to come up their top 25. As subjective at these lists can be, I have to say Men’s Journal is getting better at picking their top beers. While there are plenty of other beers I might have put on such a list — as any two people would undoubtedly choose different beers — I can’t really quibble with any of the beers they picked, save one or two, but not even enough to mention. I’ll have to do my own list one of these days.
Oregon Brewer Cuisinternship Winner Announced
Oregon Bounty, who is the sponsor of the Cuisinternship contest to find interns for seven uniquely Oregonian artisan and craft pursuits, has begun announcing the winners, one each day.
The Brewmaster Cuisinternship winner was announced this morning. From the many entries, the finalists were whittled down to seven. From those seven, I chose three finalists. The winner was then chosen by Jamie Emmerson, brewmaster at Full Sail Brewing in Mt. Hood, where he’ll spend his beer-filled week.
The beer intern winner was Kevin Kozlen of Bloomington, Illinois. Here’s his video entry. Here’s what Kevin should experience:
Along the shores of the mighty Columbia River Gorge, Kevin will get a week-long lesson from some of the country’s craft brewing pioneers. From the hop farm to the mash tun to the microscope, he’ll feel, smell and taste beer from beginning to end. If he can tear yourself away from the tasting table, he’ll be able to explore the charming town of Hood River, unofficial U.S. capitol of windsurfing, beer drinking and hanging out.
Congratulation, Kevin. Have a great time.
Weekend Reading
In my on-going efforts to stay caught up, here is some worthwhile reading I’ll suggest taking a look at. These are various random beer articles that have come to my attention over the last few weeks. Enjoy.
- Craft Beer In A Can? A Gutsy Move Is Paying Off from NPR
- Oh Dear, It’s Beer, Beer, Beer, Beer by Joanne Weintraub, on the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel Online
- That’s a ‘Binge Belly,’ Not a Beer Belly on WebMD Health News
- Category Builders vs. Category Killers on the Branding Strategy Insider
- Why Every Cold Beer Costs You More by Michael Brush on MSN Money
- Celebrate the History of Statistics: Drink a Guinness by Andrew Leonard on Salon’s How the World Works, which is also discussed at the Economist’s View
Serenity In Beer & Ale
During World War 2, the brewing industry trade organization known as the United Brewers Industrial Foundation, which was formed by the USBA in 1937, worked with the U.S. Government to create a series of ads to build morale and on their own to highlight the positive aspects of beer. Out of these grew the more familiar “Beer Belongs” series and the “Home Life in America” series of ads that the United States Brewers Foundation created and ran from 1945 to 1956. You can read my article about these later ads in the current issue of All About Beer magazine. But I recently came upon the ad below that ran in Life magazine’s August 4, 1941 issue, at page 29. I just love the language of the text, which I reprinted below, because it’s hard to read with the ad displayed so small. (Though you can click on it or here to see a larger view.)
In a hurrying, scurrying world
there’s serenity in beer and ale
Telephones jangling … radios blaring … auto horns honking … airplanes roaring. In big city or small town, peace is hard to find … and precious.
YES! It’s a busy, dizzy world in which we live! And every man and woman in it needs now and then to get away from it all. Needs to sit down quietly and shut out the din and noise for a peaceful hour or so.
In your needed hours of relaxation, beer can play a pleasant part. For this delicious brew does more than delight your taste. Its mellow, kindly nature helps to unsnarl tangled nerves, helps to refresh a weary body, helps to restore a faltering spirit.
Made from nature’s choicest grains and flavored with plump, ripe, fragrant hops, beer is a mild, wholesome brew. In fact, from earliest times, men have called beer and ale the “beverages of moderation.” Make them part of your own plan of balanced, tolerant, temperate living.
Isn’t that just beautiful. It brings a tear to your eye. Beer is certainly part of my own balanced, tolerant, temperate living. It’s funny how the pressures of life in 1941 seem almost exactly the same as those of 2009, isn’t it? I need a vacation. Good thing I’m taking one in less than two weeks.