Thursday’s ad is another Ballantine Ale ad, probably from the late 1940s or 50s. Featuring a pair of dudes on a fishing and/or camping trip holding up their glasses of Ballantine Ale. The tagline is a great one, too. “Ballantine Ale begin where other brews leave off … in flavor … in satisfaction!”
I was watching a documentary today about the Library of Congress and they talked about how the library is digitizing their collection, so I took a look at the website and discovered this little gem from 1937. Post-prohibition, apparently our government experimented with different methods for ensuring that breweries paid the correct amount of taxes. The “beer meter” was one such device they came up with, shown below.
The caption below is cut off in the original in the library’s collection, which is why it ends mid-sentence.
And now a beer meter. Washington, D.C., May 1. To aid Uncle Same in collecting the tax on the millions of barrels of beer brewed in this country every year, the National Bureau of Standards has designed a master beer meter for use of the alcohol unit of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, U.S. Treasury. Government inspectors employ this master meter in checking the accuracy of the brewery beer meter to determine the volume of beer brewed. In the photograph the large tank receives the liquid [after passing] thru the meter where it is weighed to get [the] true volume. Carl F. Stoneburner is reading ….
Wednesday’s ad is a Ballantine Ale ad from 1947. The ad is a fun little lesson on language, how the word “muff” can have different meanings. It ends on a nice twist, how the word “Ballantine Ale always means: ‘The Perfect Glass!'”
Tuesday’s ad is also Ballantine Ale, I think it’s going to be a Ballantine week. Today is also the anniversary of Peter Minuit buying the island of Manhattan in 1626 for the equivalent of around $24 (or more like $72 in today’s money) worth of “cloth, beads, hatchets, and other odds and ends.” At the time, the good were worth around 60 Dutch guilders, or about 1-1/2 lbs. of silver. Check out the Straight Dope for the … well, the straight dope. The ad depicts the scene with the humorous tagline “Early American Bargain.”
Monday’s ad is a 1957 ad for Ballantine Ale. I love the colorful late fifties dinner party, with lots of Ballantine Ale, but just soup for the guests to eat.
Today in 1788, South Carolina became the 8th state.
South Carolina
South Carolina Breweries
South Carolina Brewery Guides
Guild: South Carolina Brewers Association
State Agency: South Carolina Department of Revenue
Package Mix:
Beer Taxes:
Economic Impact (2010):
Legal Restrictions:
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.
Our 69th Guinness ad is a fairly simple one, showing a half-empty pint of Guinness and the slogan “Life Is Brighter After Guinness” in large letters followed by the more familiar “Guinness is Good For You” in smaller print below that.
Friday’s ad is for a French brewery, Brasserie De Sochaux, which closed in 1979. It looks late 19th century, but who knows. I’m not seeing the old gray-haired dude in the military (or bellhop?) uniform as making me want to drink their beer. Plus, it just seems too busy.
I’ll be very much surprised if there’s a great turnout for Session #51.5. It is after all, asking a lot — and for a second time in two weeks — gather together a selection of beers and cheese. For this extra Session, the instructions were in the round-up for Session #51. The idea was to use the list of beers chosen by everybody for each of the three cheeses that were listed in the round-up to try a few more beers with the same cheese. Simply pick up some of the other beers that were suggested, and try them with the same three cheeses and do a follow up blog post on or around Friday, May 20 to explore more fully pairing cheese and beer.
You can write about how your choices compared, or what you learned from the other suggestions, or which out of all the ones you tried worked best. What recommended pairing most surprised you? Which didn’t seem to work at all, for you? It’s my way of taking the Session concept and making it more interactive and collaborative, essentially an “online cheese-off.” First, we made our best recommendations for pairing a beer with these three cheeses, and now we have an opportunity to try as many of the suggestions as we can, and discover which worked best. I’ll then do a second round-up and report the findings of the group as a whole to the beers and the three cheeses together. If you’ve already done Part One, don’t stop now, keep going. Read what your fellow bloggers liked, and pick a few to try yourself. To participate, just post a comment here or at the round-up with a link to your blog post for Session #51.5.
A final note. Since it’s not really an “official” Session, don’t worry too much about sticking to today’s date. Have another cheese tasting whenever you like, whenever it’s convenient or you feel like it. To be honest, after being in South America for the last eleven days, I’m too tired to do it today myself, and will most likely do it next week. Feel free to do likewise. I’ll keep adding posts as they come in. Also, don’t forget about Session #52, coming up Friday, June 3.
Thursday’s ad may in fact not actually be an ad. It could just as easily be sheet music or the Playbill from a show. But the “Prince of Pilsen” sounds like a great title for a musical. I wonder why the woman on the left is dressed like the United States?
