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Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Beer In Ads #2211: Which Road, America?

March 10, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Friday’s ad is a trade ad, by the United States Brewing Industry Foundation, from 1939. After prohibition ended, the industry started doing PSA-type ads in an attempt to create goodwill for beer and brewers. They would later go on to do a fairly sophisticated series of ads between 1946 and 1956, known unofficially as Beer Belongs. Officially, they were “The Home Life in America” series, consisting of 120 ads, with a new ad running in major periodicals each month. Last year, for my Beer in Ads series, I featured every one of them. But in the years before that, the U.S. Brewing Industry Foundation (a precursor to the original Brewer’s Association) dabbled with a variety of similar ads promoting the industry as a whole. These were especially popular during World War 2, and in fact they even won an award from the government for some of these ads. Most of the ads were black and white, although a few were in color, though usually in a minimal way, with a few colors accented rather than being in full color.

In this ad, Uncle Sam stands on a hill, looking out over America laid out before him, with at least three distinct paths to choose from, wondering to himself which one to choose. What three paths, you may be asking.

  1. The Dead-End Road to Excess
  2. The Harsh Road of Intolerance
  3. The Straight Road Ahead, Which is the Way of Moderation and Sobriety

Pretty subtle, eh? After all, beer “is the bulwark of moderation, according to the verdict of history, the weight of scientific evidence, and the everyday experience of millions.”

USBF-1939-which-road

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers, Politics & Law Tagged With: Advertising, Brewers Association, History

Beer In Ads #2210: Right Down Their Alley … A Mellow Glass Of Beer Or Ale!

March 9, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Thursday’s ad is a trade ad, by the United States Brewing Industry Foundation, from 1941. After prohibition ended, the industry started doing PSA-type ads in an attempt to create goodwill for beer and brewers. They would later go on to do a fairly sophisticated series of ads between 1946 and 1956, known unofficially as Beer Belongs. Officially, they were “The Home Life in America” series, consisting of 120 ads, with a new ad running in major periodicals each month. Last year, for my Beer in Ads series, I featured every one of them. But in the years before that, the U.S. Brewing Industry Foundation (a precursor to the original Brewer’s Association) dabbled with a variety of similar ads promoting the industry as a whole. These were especially popular during World War 2, and in fact they even won an award from the government for some of these ads. Most of the ads were black and white, although a few were in color, though usually in a minimal way, with a few colors accented rather than being in full color.

In this ad, some affluent young men and women are enjoying an evening of bowling, a popular pastime in the 1950s. And apparently, “beer and bowling” is as perfect a pairing as “ham and eggs,” “hot dogs and mustard,” or “Thanksgiving and mince pie.” Personally, I don’t think mince pie goes with anything. But I do agree that “Beer belongs so definitely with your hours of relaxation.”

USBF-1941-bowling

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Brewers Association, History, Sports

The Price Of A Beer: 1952-2016

March 9, 2017 By Jay Brooks

beer-money
I saw a slideshow recently on a genealogy website that took data from the Consumer Price Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and showed the price of a pint beginning in 1952 through last year, along with what that price would be in today’s money, in other words adjusted for inflation. I took it from a slideshow and turned into a table so you could more easily see the changes over time. Perhaps most surprising is that the average price of a beer is one-third less now than it was 64 years ago.

1-drink-bill

According to the data, the adjusted price for a pint peaked in the mid-1950s, 1956-57 to be specific. After that, the price has been coming down slowly but surely (with a few blips here and there) ever since. Part of that is undoubtedly efficiencies in both brewing and distribution. The on-and-off price wars that the big brewers engaged in over the last few decades must certainly have played a roll, as it kept prices artificially low across the board. At any rate, it’s interesting to see the prices all laid out like this over six decades. I’m sure others will see a lot more in the data, too.

wooden-nickel

Year
Price of Beer
Adjusted for Inflation
1952
$0.65
$5.93
1953
$0.65
$5.80
1954
$0.67
$5.93
1955
$0.67
$5.91
1956
$0.68
$6.01
1957
$0.69
$6.01
1958
$0.69
$5.82
1959
$0.70
$5.74
1960
$0.71
$5.77
1961
$0.71
$5.68
1962
$0.71
$5.62
1963
$0.72
$5.64
1964
$0.73
$5.64
1965
$0.74
$5.65
1966
$0.75
$5.63
1967
$0.76
$5.54
1968
$0.79
$5.61
1969
$0.82
$5.58
1970
$0.86
$5.58
1971
$0.89
$5.43
1972
$0.91
$5.32
1973
$0.94
$5.32
1974
$1.01
$5.38
1975
$1.09
$5.23
1976
$1.12
$4.93
1977
$1.15
$4.78
1978
$1.22
$4.76
1979
$1.32
$4.79
1980
$1.42
$4.63
1981
$1.52
$4.37
1982
$1.59
$4.14
1983
$1.65
$4.05
1984
$1.70
$4.04
1985
$1.75
$3.99
1986
$1.83
$4.03
1987
$1.88
$4.06
1988
$1.95
$4.06
1989
$2.03
$4.06
1990
$2.13
$4.07
1991
$2.35
$4.26
1992
$2.43
$4.22
1993
$2.47
$4.17
1994
$2.50
$4.10
1995
$2.54
$4.06
1996
$2.61
$4.05
1997
$2.68
$4.04
1998
$2.73
$4.08
1999
$2.80
$4.07
2000
$2.88
$4.09
2001
$2.95
$4.06
2002
$3.02
$4.04
2003
$3.08
$4.05
2004
$3.17
$4.08
2005
$3.23
$4.05
2006
$3.31
$4.01
2007
$3.41
$4.00
2008
$3.53
$4.03
2009
$3.64
$4.00
2010
$3.68
$4.06
2011
$3.73
$4.05
2012
$3.88
$4.00
2013
$3.87
$3.99
2014
$3.91
$3.97
2015
$3.95
$3.95
2016
$3.99
$3.99

nickel-beer

Filed Under: Beers, Just For Fun, News, Related Pleasures Tagged With: Economics, Statistics, United States

Beer In Ads #2209: It Brings A Livelihood To Thousands Of Farmers

March 8, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Wednesday’s ad is a trade ad, by the United States Brewing Industry Foundation, from 1939. After prohibition ended, the industry started doing PSA-type ads in an attempt to create goodwill for beer and brewers. They would later go on to do a fairly sophisticated series of ads between 1946 and 1956, known unofficially as Beer Belongs. Officially, they were “The Home Life in America” series, consisting of 120 ads, with a new ad running in major periodicals each month. Last year, for my Beer in Ads series, I featured every one of them. But in the years before that, the U.S. Brewing Industry Foundation (a precursor to the original Brewer’s Association) dabbled with a variety of similar ads promoting the industry as a whole. These were especially popular during World War 2, and in fact they even won an award from the government for some of these ads. Most of the ads were black and white, although a few were in color, though usually in a minimal way, with a few colors accented rather than being in full color.

In this ad, the impact that the brewing industry was having at the time was neatly illustrated by placing an order with “The Farmers of America” for 3,000,000,000 pounds of barley, 31.5 million pounds of hops, 800 million pounds of corn and 186 million pounds of rice. And that doesn’t even include the yeast wranglers. And that, according to the ad, comes out to a total of $100,000,000, or $1,747,043,170 adjusted for inflation. And that also doesn’t include the $400 million that the beer industry paid in taxes, either.

USBF-1939-farm-bill

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Brewers Association, History

Scrappy’s Beer Parade

March 8, 2017 By Jay Brooks

tiny-toons
As regular readers will know, I’m a huge cartoon nerd. Today, March 8, 1933, the cartoon “Beer Parade” was released by Screen Gems, and created by the Charles Mintz Studio. It was a Scrappy cartoon.

Scrappy

Here’s more about Scrappy, from Wikipedia:

Scrappy is a cartoon character created by Dick Huemer for Charles Mintz’s Krazy Kat Studio (distributed by Columbia Pictures). A little round-headed boy, Scrappy often found himself involved in off-beat neighborhood adventures. Usually paired with his little brother Oopy (originally Vontzy), Scrappy also had an on-again, off-again girlfriend named Margy and a Scotty dog named Yippy. In later shorts the annoying little girl Brat and pesky pet Petey Parrot also appeared. Huemer created the character in 1931, and he remained aboard Mintz’s studio until 1933. With Huemer’s departure, his colleagues Sid Marcus and Art Davis assumed control of the series. The final Scrappy cartoon, The Little Theatre was released in 1941.

beerparade
Posters for the “Beer Parade”
beerparade_1933

Here’s the synopsis of the cartoon from its IMDb page:

Scrappy and Oopie, though little boys, happily celebrate the return of beer after fourteen years, with the help of brew-guzzling gnomes, apparently from the “Rip Van Winkle” story. They leave an allegorical “Prohibition” figure (ugly old man in stovepipe hat) stripped and chased off.

scrappy600

beer-parade-title

Here’s another description from a user review at IMDb:

Scrappy and Oopie are partying with some gnomes who are enjoying beer from barrels. A mean Prohibition Agent appears and attacks the barrels with an axe, but Oopie will defend the right of people to enjoy their lager in this cartoon released a month before beer sales were legalized.

It had been a long fight and this typically bizarre Scrappy cartoon has the two children strongly in support of drinking. Although they do not partake themselves, they certainly use startlingly strange methods typical of Dick Huemer’s series. It is a pretty good one because it does not ease up in the second half. Dick and his staff certainly made it clear where their sympathies lay!

beerparade

parade-2

beerparade2

This is from Scrappyland, a website dedicated to Scrappy:

Plot summary: Scrappy and Oopy joyfully serve beer by the barrelful to dozens of drunken elves until Old Man Prohibition shows up. The boys and the little men assault him from the ground and the air–even using explosives–until he chooses to bury himself. Whereupon the good times roll once more.

(I particularly like the moment when Oopy, having rigged up a rope to trip Old Man Prohibition, tugs at it to verify that it’s tight enough to do the job.)

The cartoon is an obvious allegory concerning prohibition and its repeal. But it was released on March 4, 1933, when the federal ban on alcoholic beverages was still in force, so its celebration of unrestrained imbibing was anticipatory.

FDR, who famously made repeal part of his campaign, had taken office in January; a couple of weeks after the cartoon debuted, he signed the Cullen-Harrison act, which permitted the sale of wine and 3.2 percent beer starting the following month. In December, prohibition on the federal level was fully repealed.

Prohibition was never enforced all that rigorously in cartoon land. The 1929 Silly Symphony The Merry Dwarfs presaged The Beer Parade by showing its title characters quaffing beer; 1931’s Lady Play Your Mandolin, the first Merrie Melody, takes place in a saloon and is full of tippling animals, although it’s possible that it’s set in Mexico. But the sheer quantity of beer in The Beer Parade–served by two small boys without any adult supervision–remains startling. It’s unimaginable that anyone would have made a cartoon with this theme a few years later. Or today.

(Scrappy and Oopy aren’t shown drinking in the cartoon, but they are depicted brandishing foamy mugs themselves, and do seem to be in an awfully exuberant good mood.)

He’s reviewing it from a YouTube video where someone at a public screening simply videotaped the cartoon and then uploaded it. But it’s subsequently been removed from YouTube. And as far as I can tell, Scrappy cartoons have not been released on either videotape or DVD. Which is a crying shame, because it looks like it was an amazing cartoon.

parade-1

parade-3

parade-5

parade-6

This is from Scrappyland, a website dedicated to Scrappy:

Dr. Richard Huemer–the son of Scrappy’s creator–shared this New Years’ card which was sent to his father by Joe De Nat, the Mintz studio’s musical director. The card depicts Scrappy and his Mintz stablemate Krazy Kat pumping beer into a mug inhabited by a piano player and a mermaid (presumably representing Mr. and Mrs. De Nat). Assuming that the references to 1933 and the new year mean that the De Nats distributed this card around January 1, 1933, prohibition was still in effect, but the recent election of FDR meant that its days were clearly numbered.

denatcard

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers, Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: Cartoons, History, Prohibition

Beer In Ads #2208: At The Work-Day’s End, There’s Rest … In Beer And Ale

March 7, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Tuesday’s ad is a trade ad, by the United States Brewing Industry Foundation, from 1941. After prohibition ended, the industry started doing PSA-type ads in an attempt to create goodwill for beer and brewers. They would later go on to do a fairly sophisticated series of ads between 1946 and 1956, known unofficially as Beer Belongs. Officially, they were “The Home Life in America” series, consisting of 120 ads, with a new ad running in major periodicals each month. Last year, for my Beer in Ads series, I featured every one of them. But in the years before that, the U.S. Brewing Industry Foundation (a precursor to the original Brewer’s Association) dabbled with a variety of similar ads promoting the industry as a whole. These were especially popular during World War 2, and in fact they even won an award from the government for some of these ads. Most of the ads were black and white, although a few were in color, though usually in a minimal way, with a few colors accented rather than being in full color.

In this ad, by American illustrator Harry Anderson, the scene is on an idealized farm. After a hard day’s work, the farmer’s wife is pouring him a beer as he rests against a tree. “At the work-day’s end, there’s rest … in beer and ale.”

Beer1941-harry-anderson

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Brewers Association, History

Beer In Ads #2207: The Bitterness Of Battle Fades In The Friendliness Of Beer And Ale

March 6, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Monday’s ad is a trade ad, by the United States Brewing Industry Foundation, from 1941. After prohibition ended, the industry started doing PSA-type ads in an attempt to create goodwill for beer and brewers. They would later go on to do a fairly sophisticated series of ads between 1946 and 1956, known unofficially as Beer Belongs. Officially, they were “The Home Life in America” series, consisting of 120 ads, with a new ad running in major periodicals each month. Last year, for my Beer in Ads series, I featured every one of them. But in the years before that, the U.S. Brewing Industry Foundation (a precursor to the original Brewer’s Association) dabbled with a variety of similar ads promoting the industry as a whole. These were especially popular during World War 2, and in fact they even won an award from the government for some of these ads. Most of the ads were black and white, although a few were in color, though usually in a minimal way, with a few colors accented rather than being in full color.

In this ad, titled “The Bitterness of Battle Fades in the Friendliness of Beer and Ale,” two men are sitting in a backyard, sharing a beer. They’d been playing horseshoes, but one of them, presumably the winner, said. “And now let’s have a beer together.”

USBF-1941-bitterness-fades

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Brewers Association, History

Beer In Ads #2206: But Why Court-Martial The Whole Regiment?

March 5, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Sunday’s ad is a trade ad, by the United States Brewing Industry Foundation, from 1940s. After prohibition ended, the industry started doing PSA-type ads in an attempt to create goodwill for beer and brewers. They would later go on to do a fairly sophisticated series of ads between 1946 and 1956, known unofficially as Beer Belongs. Officially, they were “The Home Life in America” series, consisting of 120 ads, with a new ad running in major periodicals each month. Last year, for my Beer in Ads series, I featured every one of them. But in the years before that, the U.S. Brewing Industry Foundation (a precursor to the original Brewer’s Association) dabbled with a variety of similar ads promoting the industry as a whole. These were especially popular during World War 2, and in fact they even won an award from the government for some of these ads. Most of the ads were black and white, although a few were in color, though usually in a minimal way, with a few colors accented rather than being in full color.

In this ad, a long line of soldiers are in perfect formation. Except for the one who just dropped his rifle. According to the USBIF, he’s like that one bad beer retailer who breaks the law or “permit anti-social conditions.” This is another ad about their “clean-up or close-up” program where they “want every beer retail establishment to be as wholesome as beer itself.”

Beer-A-Beverage-Of-Moderation-Paper-Ads-United-Brewers-Industrial-Foundation

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Brewers Association, History

Beer In Ads #2205: Nature Makes Beer

March 4, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Saturday’s ad is a trade ad, by the United States Brewing Industry Foundation, from 1940s. After prohibition ended, the industry started doing PSA-type ads in an attempt to create goodwill for beer and brewers. They would later go on to do a fairly sophisticated series of ads between 1946 and 1956, known unofficially as Beer Belongs. Officially, they were “The Home Life in America” series, consisting of 120 ads, with a new ad running in major periodicals each month. Last year, for my Beer in Ads series, I featured every one of them. But in the years before that, the U.S. Brewing Industry Foundation (a precursor to the original Brewer’s Association) dabbled with a variety of similar ads promoting the industry as a whole. These were especially popular during World War 2, and in fact they even won an award from the government for some of these ads. Most of the ads were black and white, although a few were in color, though usually in a minimal way, with a few colors accented rather than being in full color.

In this ad, showing an idyllic farm, it appears that they’re trying to change the image of bars as men’s clubs, dark and dank. The headline, “A wholesome beverage, it deserves to be sold only in wholesome surroundings.” The later mention that a modern invention, “a new kind of tavern brings you good beer and ale in clean, wholesome surroundings.” It’s an interesting effort, and obviously they didn’t do away with the dive bar (thank goodness) but it did herald an age that had several different kinds of bars, just like today.

Nature-Makes-Beer-Paper-Ads-United-Brewers-Industrial-Foundation

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Brewers Association, History

Beer In Ads #2204: Thanks A Million!

March 3, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Friday’s ad is a trade ad, by the United States Brewing Industry Foundation, from 1939. After prohibition ended, the industry started doing PSA-type ads in an attempt to create goodwill for beer and brewers. They would later go on to do a fairly sophisticated series of ads between 1946 and 1956, known unofficially as Beer Belongs. Officially, they were “The Home Life in America” series, consisting of 120 ads, with a new ad running in major periodicals each month. Last year, for my Beer in Ads series, I featured every one of them. But in the years before that, the U.S. Brewing Industry Foundation (a precursor to the original Brewer’s Association) dabbled with a variety of similar ads promoting the industry as a whole. These were especially popular during World War 2, and in fact they even won an award from the government for some of these ads. Most of the ads were black and white, although a few were in color, though usually in a minimal way, with a few colors accented rather than being in full color.

In this ad, the worker, the taxman and the farmer are all happier since beer was once again back after prohibition was repealed. That’s because since repeal, beer’s made one million jobs, the brewing industry’s paid a million dollars a day in taxes, and three millions acres of farmland dedicated to beer’s agricultural ingredients. Because, see, “even the non-beer drinker enjoy’s beer’s economic benefits!”

USBF-1939-thanks

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Brewers Association, Economics, History

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