Tuesday’s ad is a 1898 ad for a New York brewery, Geo. Ringler & Co. It’s actually a calendar poster, which was common for beer advertising during the time period. But since it’s Flag Day, and she’s wrapped in a flag, it seemed an appropriate one for today.
Monday’s ad is a 1942 ad for Ballantine Ale. It was the first full year that we were involved in World War 2, so it’s decidedly patriotic. The tagline is “How American it is … to want something better!” I like the simplicity of the ad, just a single beer bottle.
This week’s work of art is by a Scottish artist, John Quinton Pringle, who around 1904 painted Study of a Head, which is also known as Man With a Drinking Mug.
Here’s how the National Gallery of Scotland, where the painting is hung, describes Pringle and the work:
Pringle trained as an optician in 1874 and ran his own business as optician and electrician from 1896 to 1923. He used his shop as a studio after hours painting predominantly small canvases, like this painting. From around 1895 he developed an interest in French Impressionism, which influenced this work. This is one of three portraits Pringle made of an elderly man who frequented the Saltmarket area of Glasgow and visited the artist in his shop. The sitter was nicknamed ‘Kruger’ due to his supposed likeness to Paul Kruger, the Boer resistance leader and president of the Transvaal republic in South Africa. The painting is thought to date from 1904 – it is signed and dated but Pringle’s style makes it difficult to read.
You can read Pringle’s biography at Wikipedia and see a few more of his paintings at the WikiGallery and there are links to even more of his paintings at ArtCyclopedia.
Our 72nd Guinness ad is again from the “Guinness For Strength” series, with a fisherman reeling in a whale-sized fish, presumably thanks to the pint of Guinness sitting next to his chair. The fish looks every bit as surprised, even a little scared, as the dog and the fisherman.
And here’s a slightly different variation of the ad.
Friday’s ad is a 1957 ad for Budweiser. It’s yet another in the “Where there’s life … there’s Bud” series. This one shows a striking woman dressed in a white shawl (or at least hood) in bright light being poured a Budweiser. She’s staring longingly into, presumably, the eyes of the pourer.
Thursday’s ad is a 1960 ad for Budweiser. It’s yet another in the “Where there’s life … there’s Bud” series. In the ad, apparently the sound of beer being poured into a glass is enough to turn her head fast enough that her hair flips around and the expression on her face screams “surprise!”
Thanks to Angelo from Brewpublic, who posted a link to this on Facebook. A couple of days ago, the humor paper The Onion posted the hilarious picture below in their News in Photos section with the headline Samuel Adams Apologizes For ‘Boston Sucks’ Pilsner.
With Father’s day less than two weeks away, I thought I’d share this fun project done by the folks at Every Guyed, where they designed eight beer can dads.
Here’s the idea:
To celebrate Father’s Day, EveryGuyed and Moxy Creative House have teamed up once again to deliver the second installment of the ‘Cheers!’. This time we had creative director Glenn Michael raise a glass — and his brush — to 8 iconic animated dads, re-envisioning them as beer cans.
When you were a kid, Father’s Day was a pretty boring affair. Now you’re of age, and all of a sudden you have the chance to do something with your dad that he’ll actually enjoy: share a cold one together.
See if you can guess all of the cartoon dads. The answers are below, just under the slideshow, where you can see the eight individuals posters for each beer can dad.
Now I want my own dad can. What would yours look like?
You can even buy any of the prints as a poster at Moxy Creative House.
Wednesday’s ad is a 1956 ad for Budweiser. It’s another in the “Where there’s life … there’s Bud” series that was common in the late 1950s. The ad shows a can of Budweiser Lager Beer, freshly poured. Is it just me, or this ad just one big double entendre? Between the look on the guy’s face, who just poured the beer, and the woman bending down, who looks as if she’s about to kiss the head … something’s going on there. Or am I reading too much into that?
Here’s a fun video forwarded to me by Push Eject, who’s both the Production Director with The Brewing Network and also involved in Heretic Brewing. The commercial is for the Hahn Brewery, founded by legendary Australian brewer Chuck Hahn, who today runs the Malt Shovel Brewery. The Hahn brands were bought by brewing giant Lion Nathan in 1993. In 2005, Lion Nathan launched Hahn Super Dry. I confess that I’m skeptical of any beer that calls itself “super dry,” but I love the notion in the ad that you can imbue the beer with the soul of different ideas by the way you brew it. If you just expose the beer to cool things, it will become cool, too, by osmosis. It’s not quite Rube Goldberg, but it has similar elements. And most importantly, it makes me want to try the beer, even though I know I probably won’t like it very much because I’m not a fan of this type of beer.