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Beer In Art #99: Cap Anson and Buck Ewing “E.&J. Burke Ale” Beer Poster

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art-beer
Today’s art is a beautiful lithograph from 1889 featuring both beer and baseball, our recent topic during the MLB Playoffs and World Series. Although the lithograph is essentially an advertisement, its age, historic nature, value and artistic beauty make it artistic enough to be featured here, at least in my opinion. Known as the Cap Anson and Buck Ewing “Burke Ale” Beer Poster, it is the first known time that a baseball player was paid for his endorsement for advertising. The two baseball players were Cap Anson, of the Chicago White Stockings (the team that eventually became the Cubs, the modern White Sox took their name from the Cubs’ abandoned nickname in 1900), and Buck Ewing, of the New York Giants (now, of course, the San Francisco Giants, on their way to the World Series). The beer being advertised is essentially from Guinness, their Finest Pale Ale and Extra Foreign Stout, both of which were sold under the label “E. & J. Burke,” which was for Edward and John Burke who, had a liquor importing company and was licensed by Guinness to sell their products under that name, beginning in either 1849 or 1880 (accounts disagree) and continuing through the start of Prohibition.

anson-ewing-1889

Here’s the description from Robert Edwards Auctions, who auctioned one of only three known posters in 2008:

Both Anson and Ewing are pictured in their respective uniforms as they take a break from a game to enjoy a refreshing glass of beer. Anson is seen enjoying a glass of Finest Pale Ale, while Ewing opts for a glass of Extra Foreign Stout. The timeless appeal of this piece, aside from the colorful graphics and high-quality production values, lies in the artistry of the scene as a whole. In what was then a nostalgic homage to the game’s early history, Anson and Ewing are pictured relaxing outside a large retiring tent. Such tents, which were holdovers from the game of cricket, were a common site at ball games during the 1850s and early 1860s, but were no longer in vogue at the time. A large banner displayed above the tent reads “Champions,” which most likely refers to the many championships won by each player’s respective teams in the preceding years, to which they now toast. Pictured in the background is a game-in-progress scene (presumably between the White Stockings and Giants), with the field bordered by a filled-to-capacity grandstand. The foreground image further promotes the company’s products, as Anson is sitting on a keg of Finest Pale Ale and Ewing is resting his arm on a barrel of Extra Foreign Stout. Boxes of “Burke’s Old Irish Whiskey” and “Garm Kirk Scotch Whiskey” are also visible among the barrels. Perhaps the most amusing detail are the numerous empty bottles of each respective beverage that are strewn all along the ground at their feet, along with various pieces of baseball equipment (base, ball and box, and bat). Also in the foreground, lying next to a beer barrel, is letter of endorsement from the brewery that bears an “Arthur Guinness Son & Co.” seal. The name of the lithography company, “Wagner & Co. Lith – 75 Murray St. N.Y.,” is printed in the lower right corner of the poster.

The Robert Edwards Auctions also has a lot more information about the poster. According to Collectors Corner, the poster “sold for an astonishing $188,000, setting a record for a baseball-related advertising poster and a record for any American advertising poster featuring a product of any kind.”

Shameless Bragging: Winning the Russian River Invitational Washoe Tournament

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washoe-washer
I love the game of Washoes, a game that Tomme Arthur from the Lost Abbey introduced into the brewing community almost ten years ago. I’ve been known to play for hours, given the chance. Almost every small brewery along the west coast has a set of boards, and you see them fairly frequently at events, too. So I was thrilled to be invited to play in the first annual Russian River Invitational Washoe Tournament last night. My partner was Dave Keene, owner of the Toronado. We’ve played together on numerous occasions, but never in a tournament like this. There were nine teams playing in a round robin double elimination tournament. Dave and I — “Team Toronado” — managed to go undefeated through the first three rounds, earning ourselves a bye going into the finals. Since we hadn’t lost a game, the other team had to beat us twice in order to prevail. But we never gave them the chance, and won the first game in short order to win the tournament. What great fun. There definitely need to be more organized washoe tournaments.

To learn more about the rules of Washoes, check out Washoe Rules, a web page put up by Vinnie Cilurzo with the agreed-upon brewing community’s rules. The game exists in many variations around the country, and most likely originated somewhere in the Midwest, but this is the set of rules by which we played.

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Dave Keene and me after our washoe victory.

Beer In Ads #222: Bob Uecker, Mr. Baseball

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ad-billboard
Friday’s ad is the fourth baseball-themed one, which I’ll be continuing through the World Series. The ad is from 1982 and features baseball personality Bob Uecker, who Johnny Carson dubbed “Mr. Baseball.” This was one his earliest ads for Miller Lite, when they started trying to convince men to drink a low-calorie beer. It features Uecker’s signature self-deprecating humor with the line “Great ballplayers drink Lite beer because it’s less filling. I know. I asked one.”

miller-lite-uecker-1982

Bay Area Craft Beer Festival This Saturday

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bay-area-craft-beer-fest
This Saturday, October 23, another new festival will kick off in the Bay Area, in this case Martinez. The Bay Area Craft Beer Festival will be held in the historic Cannery District at the Martinez Waterfront Park, located at 333 Ferry St. in downtown Martinez from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. Tickets are $35 for general admission or $50 for a VIP ticket, which gets you in an hour earlier, at Noon. Tickets can be purchased online or at several locations throughout the Bay Area. Check out the festival website for details.

Admission includes includes a commemorative glass, unlimited tastings and entertainment, which includes three bands. Over thirty breweries will be pouring their beer. Food will also be available for a separate purchase. The festival will take place indoors, so it’s rain or shine.

BACBF

Calories In Beer: Can We Please Stop, Part 2

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diet-beer
Here’s part two of some nonsense that began last week, with Calories In Beer: Can We Please Stop?, in which I analyzed a very weird list where the Daily Beast created what they called the unhealthiest beers, under the title the 50 Most Fattening Beers.

Using an impenetrable combination of calories, carbohydrates and alcohol that ultimately showed no patterns, it ended up just being a list that made no sense, and provided no real guidelines that could be considered useful. Here’s what I said last week.

So the reality is that there’s not that much difference between most beers in terms of calories, and carbs too for that matter. Since drinking in moderation is the goal, 2-4 beers per day, then you should never choose a beer the beer with the least flavor. And that’s pretty easy to do since most are within a fairly narrow range by the numbers. It’s never enough to sacrifice what the beer tastes like for some meaningless number, be it carbohydrates or calories. And perhaps most importantly, you should never take advice from someone telling you what not to drink, not even me. Decide for yourself what to drink — not what not to drink — and let flavor be your guide.

This week, the Daily Beast has released a new list, this time The 50 Healthiest Beers, Ranked by Carbs and Calories.

Unfortunately they start with this premise. “How can you drink beer but avoid the belly?” Except that the beer belly is a myth and recent studies have essentially completely discredited it.

They’re also behind the times when they say “drink more than two per day, and the [health] benefits disappear.” The latest dietary guidelines from the FDA now recommends that a man can remain healthy if he consumes four drinks a day, so long as he doesn’t exceed the weekly maximum recommendation of 14 drinks. And another study recently found drinking six beers a day could lead to a healthier heart.

Instead, they focused again on “alcoholic punch” as a determining factor, which is unfortunate. This is what they calculate as “the best beers for your buzz.” Here’s the nuts and bolts of how they compiled the list:

To ensure a wide range of beers were considered, we looked at the offerings of the largest 15 domestic breweries and the largest five international breweries based on import volume to the U.S. Our final list was whittled further so that no more than three variations of brews from a single brand of beer were included in the top 50. We used data from the manufacturers when available, using reliable third-party databases if necessary.

But perhaps the lowest point of the exercise comes when they claim their list proves “that beer lovers don’t necessarily have to sacrifice taste for health.” The list includes 24 low-calorie light beers (48%), 8 ice beers (16%), 5 adjunct lagers (10%) and 10 malt liquors (20%). That’s 46 (or 92%) [1 beer is both an ice beer and a light beer] in styles I wouldn’t drink with a ten-foot straw. So much for diversity. The remaining four beers include a European lager, a blonde ale, a stout and an IPA. But as with the last list, there doesn’t seem to be any discernible pattern. There’s two, maybe three, beers on the list that I’d willingly order. Now maybe that’s just my own pickiness, what do you think? How many of them are beers you’d drink, regardless of their supposed healthy nature?

Like the last list, I don’t find the criteria here very good for finding good beers to drink. All the number crunching avoids the more important intangibles like aroma, taste and flavor. That’s the best reason to choose one beer over another. That, and other intangible factors like context, food, weather, etc. In the end, if the beers on this list are really the healthy beers, I don’t don’t want to be healthy. Better to actually enjoy what I’m drinking.

The Beast’s 50 Healthiest Beers

KEY: Brewery Beer: calories per 12 oz. / carbohydrates / a.b.v.

  1. Pittsburgh Brewing I.C. Light: 95 / 2.8 / 4.15%
  2. Michelob Ultra: 95 / 2.6 / 4.1%
  3. Anheuser-Busch Natural Light: 95 / 3.2 / 4.2%
  4. Anheuser-Busch Budweiser Select: 99 / 3.1 / 4.3%
  5. MillerCoors Miller Lite: 96 / 3.2 / 4.2%
  6. Anheuser-Busch Select 55: 55 / 1.9 / 2.4%
  7. Anheuser-Busch Busch Light: 95 / 3.2 / 4.1%
  8. MillerCoors MGD 64: 64 / 2.4 / 2.8%
  9. Grupo Modelo Modelo Especial: 145 / 4 / 6%
  10. MillerCoors Milwaukee’s Best Light: 98 / 3.5 / 4.2%
  11. Michelob ULTRA Amber: 95 / 3.2 / 4%
  12. MillerCoors Miller Chill: 100 / 4 / 4.2%
  13. MillerCoors Keystone Ice: 142 / 5.9 / 5.9%
  14. Grupo Modelo Corona Light: 109 / 5 / 4.5%
  15. MillerCoors Coors Light: 102 / 5 / 4.2%
  16. Anheuser-Busch Bud Ice: 123 / 8.9 / 5.5%
  17. MillerCoors Milwaukee’s Best Ice: 144 / 7.3 / 5.9%
  18. Michelob ULTRA Lime Cactus: 95 / 5.5 / 4%
  19. MillerCoors Icehouse Light: 123 / 6.6 / 5%
  20. MillerCoors Southpaw Light: 123 / 6.6 / 5%
  21. MillerCoors Keystone Light: 104 / 5 / 4.1%
  22. Anheuser-Busch Bud Light: 110 / 6.6 / 4.5%
  23. MillerCoors Keystone Premium: 111 / 5.8 / 4.4%
  24. Guinness Foreign Extra Stout: 176 / 14 / 7.5%
  25. Leinenkugel Light: 155 / 15 / 4.8%
  26. Anheuser-Busch Natural Ice: 157 / 16 / 4.9%
  27. Yuengling Light: 98 / 6.6 / 3.8%
  28. MillerCoors Miller High Life Light: 110 / 7 / 4.2%
  29. Grolsch Light Lager: 97 / 5.7 / 3.6%
  30. MillerCoors Molson XXX: 201 / 10.9 / 7.3%
  31. MillerCoors Icehouse 5.0: 132 / 8.7 / 5%
  32. MillerCoors Steel Six: 160 / 11 / 6%
  33. MillerCoors Olde English 800 7.5%: 202 / 13.4 / 7.5%
  34. MillerCoors Icehouse 5.5: 149 / 9.8 / 5.5%
  35. MillerCoors Olde English 800 5.9%: 160 / 10.5 / 5.9%
  36. MillerCoors Olde English High Gravity 800: 220 / 14.6 / 8%
  37. MillerCoors Mickey’s Ice: 157 / 11.8 / 5.8%
  38. MillerCoors Steel Reserve High Gravity: 222 / 16 / 8.1%
  39. MillerCoors Steel Reserve Triple Export 8.10%: 222 / 16 / 8.1%
  40. MillerCoors Molson Golden: 133 / 10.9 / 5%
  41. MillerCoors Hamm’s Special Light: 110 / 7.3 / 3.9%
  42. Heineken Light: 99 / 6.8 / 3.5%
  43. MillerCoors Magnum Malt Liquor: 157 / 11.2 / 5.6%
  44. MillerCoors Mickey’s: 157 / 11.2 / 5.6%
  45. MillerCoors Tyskie: 153 / 10.6 / 5.4%
  46. MillerCoors Molson Canadian: 136 / 11.1 / 5%
  47. Yuengling Light Lager: 96 / 8.5 / 3.6%
  48. Redhook Long Hammer IPA: 188 / 12.66 / 6.5%
  49. Genesee Ice: 156 / 14.5 / 5.9%
  50. Beck’s St. Pauli Girl Lager : 148 / 8.7 / 4.9%

Beer In Ads #220: The Goodness of Malt (& Baseball)

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ad-billboard
Wednesday’s ad is the second baseball-themed one, which I’ll be continuing through the World Series. The ad is from 1958 and is by the now defunct trade organization for brewer’s malt, the Barley and Malt Institute. It features a number of men enjoying both beer and baseball. The text is great, too. “The goodness of Malt yours when you say , “Let’s make it beer.” It looks like beer at the ballpark in 1958 may have been $1. The man in the foreground is holding two beers, and the hand on the right appears to have just accepted two dollar bills. That, or it’s even cheaper and he just bought a round for the row.

barley-and-malt-1958-baseball

Under the Influence of Recession

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california
The California Board of Equalization — our taxing agency — yesterday sent out a press release with the results of a study they did on drinking trends in the state based on the collection of excise taxes. The release, Under the Influence of Recession: BOE Answers the Question, “Do People Drink More During an Economic Downturn?” is available as a pdf from the BOE’s newsroom page.

Below is the press release, which reports the overall findings:

There are no consistent patterns in alcohol consumption or spending on alcohol during recessions, a report released today by Board of Equalization (BOE) Chairwoman Betty T. Yee concludes.

The November 2010 edition of the BOE’s Economic Perspective newsletter looks at alcohol consumption data during the recessions of 1970, 1973, 1980, 1981, 1990, 2001 and 2008. The Economic Perspective is a quarterly publication produced by the BOE that looks at economic factors of interest or that influence California economic activity. The November edition looks exclusively at the issue of alcohol consumption during the seven recessions of the last 40 years.

“Economic data compiled by the Board of Equalization contains a wealth of information for estimating revenue impacts and other analyses that serve the agency’s tax administration mission,” said Chairwoman Yee. “In this case, the figures do not indicate any generalized patterns of behavioral change in alcohol use during bad economic times.”

The BOE report notes several ways consumers would be expected to react during recessions: First, total alcohol consumption per capita may fall during the recession, as consumers would have less income to spend on alcohol. Second, consumers may substitute less expensive brands of alcohol for more expensive brands or less expensive ways to consume alcohol for more expensive ways, such as more off-premises consumption during recessions, as opposed to in bars and restaurants. Third, consumers may change the kind of alcohol they drink, for example switching from distilled spirits to less expensive alternatives such as beer. The fourth response, based on psychology more than economics, would be that consumers “drink away their sorrows,” and increase alcohol consumption during recessions. The data show examples of all four kinds of responses during recessions. The most consistent response, occurring in four of the seven recessions studied, was lower growth in on-premises alcohol consumption.

The November Economic Perspective also notes that in terms of national spending patterns on alcohol, prior to the 2008-09 recession total U.S. spending rose 2.4 percent. In contrast, during the 2008-09 recession, U.S. spending on alcohol declined by 1.7 percent.

The Economic Perspective newsletter also notes:

  • Alcohol consumption nationally is at a 25-year high, based on a Gallup survey released in the summer of 2010, with 67 percent of Americans drinking alcohol.
  • Federal Health and Human Services data show a low of 1.96 gallons ethanol consumption per capita in 1954 (a recession year) and a high of 2.76 gallons in both 1980 and 1981 (both of which were recession years).
  • The data show that California alcohol consumption has generally followed national trends in the last 20 years. California per capita consumption, like the U. S., reached a low point in 1998, then started gradually trending upward.

The report points out that historical data show that when confronted with a recession, people who drink alcohol have responded in a variety of ways.

Various Responses Represented in Recessions

The data show examples of all four kinds of responses during recessions. The first consumer response, less growth in total alcohol spending, occurred in 1973, 2001, and 2008. Chart 3 shows these changes in total alcohol spending for each recession. The second kind of response, lower growth in on-premises alcohol consumption, occurred in the recessions that started in 1973, 1980, 1981, and 2008. This appears to be the most consistent response, happening in four of the seven recessions.The third response was seen in both of the 1970s recessions. Beer consumption went up in the recessions of the 1970s, while distilled spirits consumption went down. This kind of response has not happened since the 1970s. And the fourth response, significantly higher total alcohol spending during a recession, happened in 1970 and 1990.

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And here’s some interesting tidbits from the Economic Perspective newsletter:

Average total U.S. ethanol consumption per capita is tabulated by decade in [the chart below] to track long-term trends. As shown in the chart, average ethanol consumption per capita for the first nine years of the first decade of 2000 was similar to that of both the 1960s and the 1990s. The recent decades with the highest consumption were the 1970s and the 1980s.

boe-2010-1

And here’s some more from the newsletter on alcohol and the economy.

U. S. Alcohol Drinking rate at 25-Year High

A Gallup survey released in the summer of 2010 indicated that 67 percent of Americans drink alcohol, the highest percentage recorded since 1985.1 Is there some kind of statistical relationship between alcohol consumption and economic growth? Do people drink more during recessions and associated periods of high unemployment rates?

Do We Drink More During Recessions?

To answer this question, this article reviews long term and short term trends in alcohol consumption and analyzes changes before and during the recessions we have had since World War II.
According to Gallup:Despite some yearly fluctuations, the percentage of Americans who say they drink alcohol has been remarkably stable over Gallup’s 71 years of tracking it. The high point for drinking came in 1976-1978, when 71 percent said they drank alcohol. The low of 55 percent was recorded in 1958. When Gallup first asked Americans about drinking, in the waning days of the Great Depression in 1939, 58 percent of adults said they were drinkers.

Gallup reports also note that the percentage of Americans who say they drink alcohol has been in the low 60s fairly consistently since 1947.

Gallup Data Show Alcohol Use Unrelated to Recessions

Based on these data, it would appear that prior to 2010 there was little, if any relationship between the percentage of people drinking and economic conditions. The economy was not in a recession during the 1976-1978 period, when the highest percentage of adults defined themselves as alcohol drinkers (71 percent). In fact, the economy was growing rapidly, with real gross domestic product (GDP) increasing an average of 5.2 percent per year during this three-year period. This is well above the 2.9 percent average annual growth rate experienced by the U.S. economy since 1945. The economy was in a recession from August 1957 through April 1958, about the time of the lowest percentage of adult drinking in Gallup’s records (55 percent).2 If anything, these extreme points in the Gallup poll results seem to indicate that people drink more when the economy does

Other Measures of Alcohol Consumption

Polls such as those done by the Gallup Group measure how prevalent drinking is. Other measures indicate how much alcohol is consumed. These include ethanol (pure alcohol) content, gallons of liquid by type of product, and spending in dollars.

Health and Human Services Alcohol Surveillance Reports

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) periodically does surveillance reports of state and national alcohol consumption in terms of gallons of ethanol content of beer, wine, and distilled spirits per capita for those over age 14. Sources of data include state government revenue agencies and various industry sources. The most recent HHS report has these annual data from 1934 through 2008.3 The data show no obvious correlations with recessions. For example, in 2001 (the most recent recession covered by these data) total U.S. ethanol consumption from beer, wine, and distilled spirits was 2.18 gallons per capita,

Alcohol Consumption Rising Since 1998

The HHS data show that total U.S. ethanol consumption reached its most recent low point in 1998, at 2.14 gallons per capita. It has been slowly trending upward since then, reaching 2.32 gallons per capita in 2008. As shown in Chart 1, wine and distilled spirits were responsible for the increase in U.S. per capita consumption from 1998 to 2008.

Lowest and Highest Alcohol Consumption

The lowest U.S. total ethanol consumption since the end of World War II was 1.96 gallons per capita in 1954 (a recession year, with a recession running from July 1953 through May 1954). The highest consumption was 2.76 gallons per capita in both 1980 and 1981 (both recession years, each with six-month periods of recessions).

On additional interesting findings is that during a recession, they did note that people tend to go out less frequently, meaning sales of alcohol at restaurants and bars decline, but based on the uptick in retail purchases of alcohol for home consumption it’s essentially a wash. But that means, as we’ve seen brewpubs and restaurants struggle a bit while package craft and regional breweries have had solid growth.

The BOE study concludes that “there appear to be no consistent patterns in alcohol consumption or spending during recessions. Recessions are all different; some last longer than average, some are associated with more than average job losses. Alcohol consumption responses during recessions are also different, and not very predictable. The historical data show that when confronted with a recession, people who drink alcohol have responded in a variety of ways.”