Tuesday’s holiday ad is for Molson from 1985. I chose a Molson ad because today would have been founder John Molson’s 247th birthday. The playful ad shows two horse-drawn sleighs, one of which, driven by a man, is hauling cases of beer and the other, presumably driven by a woman, remarking that “You can land on my roof anytime.”
Monday’s holiday ad is for Budweiser from 1950 and features a Santa-like chef with a bounteous feast of meats and seafood, along with fruits and cheese. The slogan for that ad is “Something more than beer … A tradition in hospitality.” It originally ran in Life magazine’s Christmas issue for 1950.
The Santa-like chef image had been used before, in this 1947 ad about “Help Yourself to Good Taste.”
This week’s work of art is an original acrylic painting done in 2009. The painting is 50 cm x 70 cm and can be yours, from Fine Art America, for only $370. Sadly, beyond the Fine Art America page, there’s little information about the artwork or the artist himself.
You can see a few more of Black’s paintings at his Fine Art America profile page.
My friend and colleague, Tom Dalldorf, sent me the link to this cool video by Sapporo beer for the Canadian market. Entitled Legendary Biru, it’s almost Rube Goldberg-esque. The original music is pretty addictive, too, but it’s the inventive way in which they re-imagine the brewing process that I find interesting. You can also see more about it at Sapporo’s Canadian website. I think there may be a contest of some kind, too, but I didn’t look closely at that aspect of it.
Our 48th Guinness poster by John Gilroy features Santa Claus decorating the Christmas tree with Guinness bottles, with a little help from all of his zoo animals. Now that’s “Guinness Time” … er Christmas Time.
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.
Our last day at Sierra Nevada’s Beer Camp last Friday, we were invited to their last quarterly beer dinner at the Big Room at the Brewery. Executive Chef Micheal Iles created an impressive five-course dinner, which each course mimicking one meal of the day, so that in essence we ate a day’s worth in one meal. You can see a photo gallery of the beer dinner below.
And as cool as the dinner was, the real treat was a presentation given by Sierra Nevada co-founder Ken Grossman. Throughout the dinner, in between courses, he told the story of how Sierra Nevada Brewery began, complete with slides. By complete happenstance, I happened to be sitting on a riser directly in front of the presentation, so I set up my Flip camera and taped most of it. The talk is separated into 8 parts, since that’s how the presentation was given. It’s just over an hour, and part one is below.
To see the rest of Ken Grossman’s presentation, I set up a page with all 8 videos embedded, The Sierra Nevada Story. Enjoy.
Today is my friend and neighbor’s birthday, Brent Ainsworth. Brent was a newspaper man until very recently, when he became the Novato Patch for AOL’s ambitious local news Patch project. Brent also wrote the occasional beer piece and contributes stories to the Celebrator Beer News. oin me in wishing Brent a very happy birthday.
Marin/Moylan’s owner Brendan Moylan and friend, Brent and Mike Altman, owner of Iron Springs Brewing at the Celebrator 20th anniversary party.
Brent and Lars Larson from Trumer Brauerei.
Brent (top right) at the 4th Philopotes Society meeting in July.