Wednesday’s ad is a 1948 ad for Rheingold Beer, featuring Miss Rheingold for that year, Pat Quinlan. In the ad, Miss Quinlan is carrying two baskets with three puppies and kittens in each. With the garden in the background, it almost looks like she’s just come back from picking them.
Tuesday’s ad is a 1958 ad for Rheingold Beer, featuring Miss Rheingold for that year, Madelyn Darrow. In the ad, Miss Darrow is apparently trying to figure out how many hats she can fit into a three-wheeled precursor to the smart car.
Today in 1788, New York became the 11th state.
New York
New York Breweries
New York Brewery Guides
Guild: New York State Brewers Association
State Agency: New York State Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control
Package Mix:
Beer Taxes:
Economic Impact (2010):
Legal Restrictions:
Some counties may retain the Sunday morning beer prohibition which the state discontinued as of July 30, 2006. Twelve dry towns, mostly in western region of state. All liquor stores must be owned by a single owner, who owns that store and lives within a certain distance of it — effectually banning chain liquor stores from the state. New York City law does not allow open containers of alcohol in public. Thus, having a beer on the stoop of a building may draw a citation. However, practically, bagged containers of alcohol are consumed in violation of the rule, since opaque bags conceal evidence necessary to prosecute a citation and it is difficult to warrant a search of the bag without other evidence (evidence discovered due to an improper search is inadmissible in court).
Data complied, in part, from the Beer Institute’s Brewer’s Almanac 2010, Beer Serves America, the Brewers Association, Wikipedia and my World Factbook. If you see I’m missing a brewery link, please be so kind as to drop me a note or simply comment on this post. Thanks.
For the remaining states, see Brewing Links: United States.
Monday’s ad is a 1951 ad for Rheingold Beer, featuring Miss Rheingold for that year, Elise Gammon. In the ad, Miss Gammon is arriving — or leaving? — a cocktail party and is either taking her mink off or putting on — it could be either, maybe that was the point?
Our 54th Session turns sour … sour beer, that is. Jon Abernathy, who writes The Brew Site, has chosen the topic Sour Beer, which he describes like so:
Instead we’ll be in the heat of the summer and while we’ve had Sessions covering Summer Beers, Fruit Beers, and Wheat Beers already (all which could suitably cover summertime beer enjoyment), it occurred to me that the topic of Sour Beers fits well within the season and (surprisingly!) hasn’t come up yet.
I’ve been gradually exploring Sour Beer and finding myself seeking out and trying various beers which fit into the “sour” realm (yes, I’m purposefully avoiding the word “style” here as it is entirely too loaded): beers inoculated with wild yeasts, soured with fruit (often in conjunction with those wild yeasts and barrel-aging), lactic acid beers like Berliner Weisse-influenced beers and the rare Gose, and so on. It’s a challenging area, both in acquiring a taste for soured beer and in brewing them—fortunately many brewers are being adventurous and branching out these days, giving us many more options.
So that’s our topic for August: Sour Beer. I’ll leave the implementation up to you, but here are some suggestions: seek out and review a sour beer of some kind; write about your experiences with brewing a sour beer; talk about your first sour beer experience; who’s brewing the better sours—Belgians or Americans (or somebody else)?; perhaps a contrary approach—what you don’t like about sour beers. Or if you have the perfect sour beer idea you want to write about, I can’t wait to read it!
Personally, I LOVE sour beer, so this one should be fun. So practice your pucker face and get ready to write all about it for the next Session on Friday, August 5.
Our 78th Guinness is the scan of an original mock-up using the tagline “Lovely day for a Guinness.” Most likely it was meant for the time period during World War II given the military men and the Toucans flying in formation.
Friday’s ad is the 420th beer ad I’ve posted so in honor of that number, today’s ad is for a beer festival, the 420 Fest put on by SweetWater of Atlanta, Georgia. It was done by artist R. Marx for the 2008 festival. Happy 420!
Thursday’s ad is another one for Schlitz, this time much later, from 1968. Using their popular “When you’re out of Schlitz, you’re out of beer” slogan. The image, though, is a less-than-flattering angle.
Wednesday’s ad is from 1941 for Schlitz, and is certainly a product of its time. Showing a housewife pouring glasses of Schlitz as her work-weary husband waves through the window as he walks home from work. The ad copy is great. “Coming home from a day’s hard work, it’s a truly happy husband who finds Schlitz at the evening meal!”
Tuesday’s ad is an old woodcut piece of art used to promote Ballantine Ale. Whether it was used in an advertisement or for some other promotional purpose is unclear. It’s visually telling the presumably mythical story of how the Ballantine three-ring logo was born, when its founder, Peter Ballantine, had set down his glass a few times, accidentally creating a perfect geometric shape known as Borromean rings. As the first woodcut suggests “Under his glass Peter Ballantine found a trade-mark now famous.” The Borromean rings became Ballantine’s logo, which did make the brand very recognizable.
In the second woodcut, the incredibly buff Peter Ballantine is pointing to the rings, presumably showing them to someone else, unless he’s in the habit of pointing and talking to himself, of course. And just look at the grip he keeps on his beer. No one is taking that glass away from him.
Still, pretty awesome art.