Saturday’s holiday ad is for Miller High Life from 1949 and features their “Girl in the Moon” wishing everyone “Seasons Greetings.” I normally don’t keep the “Beer in Ads” series running through the weekend, but there’s just too many great Christmas beer ads not to. And mores specifically, “A Holiday toast to you from the National Champion of Quality … Miller High Life.”
And here’s a close-up of the artwork.
Friday’s holiday ad is for Blatz from, I think, sometime in the 1950s. It shows a couple toasting their beer glasses under a sprig of mistletoe. I know what happens if two people meet under the mistletoe, but anybody know what happens when it’s two beers? Hoppy holidays everybody.
Thursday’s holiday ad is also for Schlitz from 1948 and is from their “I Was Curious” ad campaign, where someone who’s never had it before finally “tasted it” and now they “know why Schlitz is … The Beer that made Milwaukee Famous.” The only difference is that this time it was during a Christmas party.
Wednesday’s holiday ad is for Schlitz from 1951 and shows an apartment building with a myriad of different Christmas celebrations, but all of them, of course, involving Schlitz.
One of the first beers of the New Year will be a new Imperial IPA from Sierra Nevada Brewing, whose Hoptimum will be officially released January 1, 2011. If you’re fortunate enough to be in Chico, it was released there locally on Monday, but the rest of us will have to wait until 2011.
The Hoptimum was created during on of Sierra Nevada’s “Beer Camps,” a new program where people — usually beer distributors, retailers and others — spend two days at the brewery’s pilot brewhouse learning about the brewery and making their own small batch of beer. I was fortunate enough to attend Beer Camp last week, but more about that later.
After the success of the single batch, beer camp Hoptimum, Sierra Nevada tweaked the formula for a commercial release, which they describe as follows:
Hops, hops, and more hops are the stars of this big, whole-cone Imperial IPA. Resinous “new-school” and exclusive hop varieties carry the bold and aromatic nose. The flavor follows the aroma with layers of aggressive hoppiness, featuring notes of grapefruit rind, rose, lilac, cedar, and tropical fruit — all culminating in a dry and lasting finish.
And the label is one of the coolest I’ve seen from any brewery, featuring a true “hop head” in fancy clothes. According to the label, it’s a “Whole-Cone Imperial IPA” for “the Ultimate Whole-Cone Hop Experience.” That’s a nod to Sierra Nevada’s philosophy of using whole-cone hops rather than pellets.
And here’s how the original “beer camp” beer — made for last year’s SF Beer Week — was described:
A group of hop-heads and publicans challenged our Beer Camp brewers to push the extremes of whole-cone hop brewing. The result is this: a 100 IBU, whole-cone hurricane of flavor. Simply put- Hoptimum: the biggest whole-cone IPA we have ever produced. Aggressively hopped, dry-hopped and torpedoed with our exclusive new hop varieties for ultra-intense flavors and aromas.
And here are few of the particulars for the commercial version:
By pure happenstance, I was in Sierra Nevada’s sensory lab last Friday when random sample bottles of Hoptimum came in for analysis, in this case tasting, before being released locally on Monday, and the rest of the world on January 1.
I had the beer camp version last year, but too long ago for any meaningful comparison. The commercial version, though, is quite wonderful. Despite being a big, hoppy beer, it’s well-balanced and almost mild for an Imperial IPA. I mean that only in the sense that the hops, while enveloping and intense, are not over-powering, harsh or astringent and meld nicely with the malt character. The beer has great conditioning. It doesn’t taste like a 10.4% beer, either. It’s not hot, but warming. You could drink a lot of it. I plan to. It comes in 24 oz. bottles making it an ideal beer to share with a friend or loved one. If this is how 2011 will begin, perhaps it will be a great year. I’d certainly toast to that. But forget the champagne, give me a Hoptimum.
Tuesday’s holiday ad is for Carling Black Label from 1955 during their Hey Mabel period of time. The tree is just Mabel hanging “black labels” on it. Now that’s a tree.
Monday’s holiday ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon from 1951 and feature some pretty ugly dolls singing Pabst’s slogan of the day, “What’ll You Have.” The Christmas tree has a “Charlie Brown” look to it, as well.
This week’s work of art is an original oil painting done sometime between the 1920s and 40s. Known only as “Beer Company Oil Painting.” The painting is 28″ x 23″ and can be yours, from Inkwell, for only $2,250.
It’s a pretty cool painting, but it’s a shame we don’t know more about it, especially what brewery may have commissioned it. I picked it today because the old man is wearing distinctive red and green Christmas colors and has a vaguely Santa look to him, what with the white hair and the pipe. But that hat has to go, it makes Santa look like a cab driver.
Our 47th Guinness poster wasn’t strictly done by John Gilroy, but it does feature his smiling, anthropomorphized glasses looking up at a clock somehow meant to signify Christmas time. The only text is “Christmas — That’s Guinness Time.”
Friday’s holiday ad is a pair of Schlitz winter ads from 1958. They’re almost identical, except that one show a feminine hand while the other a masculine one. The backgrounds re also slightly different, though both show a snowy winter wonderland.
The Female Version:
The Male Version:
