Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Beer In Ads #1417: Is This Something Special?

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Saturday’s holiday ad is for Ballantine Ale, from 1954. “Is this something special? It certainly is … that’s Ballantine Ale.” There are three people at this tree-trimming party (note the three bottles of Ballantine) but only one person appears to be doing any work. The woman’s glass of beer sits unsipped on the silver tray, while the man on the left has started drinking his and the man on the right looks as if he’s just topped himself off. The woman is looking back at the the two dudes with an expression that says “you lazy chuckleheads.”

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Beer In Ads #1416: A Tradition … Good Taste

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Friday’s holiday ad is for Blatz Pilsener Beer, from 1945. A woman in a red dress looks longingly up at a sprig of mistletoe, while a bottle of beer sits peacefully in the corner. I think she’s hoping for someone to walk by. Perhaps the beer is bait? Although it does seem to be just hanging in the air, so maybe it’s a magical bottle of beer.

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Beer In Ads #1415: Hail To A Merry Christmas

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Thursday’s holiday ad is for Ballantine Ale, from 1938. It’s an extremely odd Christmas ad, with all of the adults standing around the decorated tree, beer in one hand, and with the other, well, holding up the “ok” or Ballantine ring sign. They almost look like they’re part of a cult, don’t they? Merry Christmas. Hail Christmas.

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Beer In Ads #1414: May Your Christmas Be Merry

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Wednesday’s holiday ad is yet another one for Carling Black Label, this time from 1955. It’s a simple ad showing a bottle of Carling Black Label, a full glass of beer and a small yule log with a candle burning on it, with some Christmas balls and grass surrounding it, and a scroll with the following on it. “May Your Christmas be merry, your New Year full of happiness …” and then it’s signed “from all your friends at Carling’s.” It’s also one of those magic bottles common in ads at that time. Even though the bottle is only about one-third empty, the pilsner glass is filled to the brim. So either it’s a ginormous bottle or a tiny glass. It can’t be both, can it? Happy Christmas Eve. May Your Christmas Be Merry.

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Rules For Christmastime Pub Goers

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The Stoke Inn, located in Plymouth, England, looks like a typical British pub.

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But pub landlord Steve Bowen may be my new favorite bartender.

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Apparently in Great Britain it’s a common occurrence for people who don’t regularly drink in pubs to visit them over the holidays. I suspect it’s much like every Irish-themed pub fills up each St. Patrick’s Day here in America, or is similar to people who attend church only twice a year, on Easter and Christmas. Essentially, such people are not regulars and often are unaware of the proper protocols or etiquette that more seasoned pub-goers follow. Five years ago, I did a similar list about my Top 10 Festival Pet Peeves about the same phenomenon at beer festivals.

Earlier this month, Bowen posted his tongue-in-cheek “Rules” for proper pub behavior over the holidays. It’s hilarious. Perhaps even funnier is how many people missed the point and complained about the list, meaning they’re most likely the people he was talking about, so definitely take a look at the comments, too. Below is his rules for the seasonal drinker. Enjoy.


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XMAS AT THE STOKE INN, PLYMOUTH

It’s that festive time of year when decent, honest boozers are plagued by non-drinkers. And not real non-drinkers, not people who don’t ever drink, they’re fine. We’re talking about people who don’t go near a pub for 11 months out of the year, the kind of awful human beings who buy their beer from supermarkets with the weekly shop, people who consume such a laughable quantity of alcohol that they can only be designated as “non-drinkers”.

Whether it’s the Christmas Work’s Do or a Festive Drink With Friends, you are ruining pubs for the rest of us. Everyone hates you. Every actual drinker in the pub hates you and all the serving staff hate you. You’re awful. Here’s a guide on how to not be quite so awful

DO NOT APPROACH THE BAR UNTIL YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT

• The bar is an intricate machine full of separate-yet-interconnecting cogs. It is NOT the place to think or choose or decide. The engine only works if everyone knows their place and performs their function. Do you hear that collective groan as you ask the Bartender if they’ve got Cranberry Juice? Or as you turn around to ask Barbara what she wants to drink? That groan is you single-handedly sucking life away from your fellow drinkers. Make a decision first, then go to the bar and order what you’ve selected. Just like ANY OTHER FORM OF COMMERCE!

DON’T START DRINKING AT 4PM

• You’re NOT a drinker. We haven’t seen you all year. You’re an amateur, so don’t start out with a Marathon. You can’t just rock up to the Premier League one day saying “I’m Match Fit, lads!” This is why you’re puking and crying before nine o’clock at night.

YOU ARE IN A ROUND

• I don’t care who you’re with, how many of you there are or how well you know them. You are in a Round with all the people you came in with. That’s how it works. You see those twenty-five loud, burly, drunken Rugby Players on the other side of the pub? They are a pleasure to serve compared to you. They order eight pints of lager, eight pints of Guiness, six pints of bitter and three Jack Daniels, then they pay the bill in one fell swoop. Your group orders ten drinks one-at-a-time and then pays for them all one-at-a-time as the rest of pub creeps closer to Death’s eternal grasp waiting for you to finish, despite the fact nine of you are drinking the same fucking drink and the last person, THE LAST PERSON, wants a Guiness putting on. Every single person waiting to get served wants your group to die in a complicated house fire.

KNOW WHERE YOU ARE

• Look around you. What kind of drinking establishment are you in? Is it a pub or a bar? If there’s 85 lads watching football on the telly, stop trying to be a drunk, flirty attention-whore because it won’t work. If the walls are cluttered with offers of 6 Shots Of Neon Sourz For A Fiver, don’t try asking for that Single Malt whiskey you memorized from Mad Men. Equally, if it’s a pub adorned with wood furnishings and hand-pulls, stop trying to get the Landlord to make that shitty cocktail you saw on Sex And The City

HOT GIRLS GET SERVED FIRST

• Welcome to Western Civilization.

iPHONE ETTIQUETTE

• Okay, the music isn’t great. It’s nothing to write home about. But it’s been specifically selected to offend the least amount of people. It’s background music. If you want anything else, then you want to be at a club or a gig. If, however, you’ve decided to“do the pub a favour” by blaring out a playlist from your iPhone, then you are a twat. A prize, prize twat. Other expletives come to mind. Likewise don’t get offended if the barman politely gives you a pound and rejects all six Abba songs you paid for.

ATTRACTING ATTENTION

• Newsflash: You are NOT next. You might have been in the bar queue longer than anybody else, but that doesn’t mean you’re next. Do you know why? Because there are no “Official Rules Of Queueing At The Bar.” The Bartender is 100% in charge of who is next. So do not piss them off. Yes, they can see you. You do not need to bang your change on the top of the bar. You do not need to wave your money around in the air, as if you’re the only person in the room with a tenner (unless it’s a Strip Club). You especially do not need to click your fingers like a Parisian Cafe prick or whistle like a Shepherd herding his flock. These tactics will only achieve one outcome: no matter how long you’ve been waiting up until this point, you’ve just moved yourself to the back of the queue.

PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT

• If an old bloke sat at the bar gets served before you do, and the Bartender knows him by name and even seems to know what he’s drinking before he orders it, just shut the fuck up. That’s Bob. Bob drinks here all the time. Bob drinks here five times a week, every week. Bob’s custom pays the bills. Bob and the other Regulars keep the pub open eleven months of the year whilst you’re having dinner parties and bulk-buying booze from the supermarket. Yes, they get preferential treatment. Accept it and shut the fuck up.

TIME IS TIME (sometimes)

• Pubs don’t stop serving because they hate you (that’s a lie, sometimes they do) or because it’s funny or because they get bored of selling beer. It’s a legal requirement for them to stop serving at a designated time. Once Time is called, they are legally unable to sell anymore beer. You cannot cajole them into selling more, because it’s a legal requirement. You cannot bribe them into selling more, either with the promise of drinks or money, because it’s a legal requirement. You cannot reason or argue them into selling more, because it’s a legal fucking requirement. “Who’s gonna know? There’s nobody around, I won’t tell anyone.” THAT’S HOW THE HOLOCAUST STARTED!

See you in twelve months, you fucking pricks.

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I think the Stoke Inn is my new favorite pub. Happy Holidays.

The Next Session Looks For The Next Great Beer Book

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For our 95th Session, our original host has gone missing, so happily Alan McLeod of A Good Beer Blog offered to come to the recuse and host the January Session, his third time hosting. For his topic, he’s asking one simple question. “What beer book which has yet to be written would you like to see published?” You can read Alan’s thought process and more about what he’s looking for in his post “I Answer The Call! Again I Host!!!,” but these are the important bits.

What is the book you would want to write about good beer? What book would you want to read? Is there a dream team of authors your would want to see gathered to make that “World Encyclopedia of Beer and Brewing”? Or is there one person you would like to see on a life long generous pension to assure that the volumes flow from his or her pen? Let us know.

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So put on your thinkin’ caps, let the synapses fire on an open flame. To participate in January’s Session, just come up with the next great beer book. Then on the second day of 2015 — see you’ve got until next year to work on this, plenty of time — post your idea in the comments section to Alan’s announcement. Then get writing. We’ll all want to see that book written by the following year at the latest.

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Beer In Ads #1413: Happy Holidays Ahead …

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Tuesday’s holiday ad is another one for Carling Black Label, this time from 1958, also during the “Hey, Mabel” years, but when they transitioning to “People try it … and they like it!” as a tagline. But I especially love the festive beer glass with the Christmas tree painted on it, complete with presents underneath. Happy Christmas Eve Eve.

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Diocletian’s Edict On Beer Prices

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Today is the birthday of Diocletian, who was born in the year 244 C.E. He was a Roman Emperor, whose reign lasted from 284 to 305. During his time in charge and before, runaway inflation was a growing problem, which caused him to put a cap on prices in 301 C.E. Known as the “Ēdictum Dē Pretiīs Rērum Vēnālium” or Edict on Maximum Prices or occasionally the Edict of Diocletian, it set the maximum prices allowed on a variety of commodities, goods and services.

For example, a sextarius (roughly 500 ml, or about a pint) of Egyptian Beer had a maximum price of 2 Denarii. A Denarius was a common coin in Ancient Rome, beginning around 211 B.C. E. during the Second Punic War, becoming “the most common coin produced for circulation. The word denarius is derived from the Latin dēnī “containing ten”, as its value was 10 asses (later “retarrifed at sixteen asses”). It is the origin of several modern words such as the currency name dinar and the Italian common noun for money: denaro.”

Prsumably because it was better, the same amount of Gallic or Pannonian Beer had a maximum price set of 4 Denarii. Pannonia was a Roman province in the northern part of the empire, and was located in “present-day western Hungary, eastern Austria, northern Croatia, north-western Serbia, northern Slovenia, western Slovakia and northern Bosnia and Herzegovina.” Gaul was the area that is modern-day France.

Egyptian beer was sometimes translated as “Zythus” and at least another translation lists the Gallic or Pannonian Beer as “beer called Camus.” These other translations also list something called “Barley wine of Attica” with a hefty maximum price of 24 Denarii. Attica was the area around and including Athens in Greece. I have no idea if that was anything like our modern barley wine, and I can find no other mention of it in a quick search.

Another translation done in 1876 by an Edward Young, entitled “Labor in Europe and America: A Special Report on the Rates of Wages, the Cost of Subsistence and the Condition of the Working Classes” converted the Denarii prices to the then nearest American equivalent, which the author supposed was one-half cent to the Denarius. Using that scheme, the Egyptian beer would have been 7 cents, the Zythus, or Gallic or Pannonian Beer would have been 14 cents, and the barley wine of Attica 84 cents. Adjusting for inflation 138 years, in 2014 prices the maximum prices for a pint of our three beers would be $1.56, $3.11 and $18.67, which would be pretty expensive, even for 16 oz. of barley wine. But overall, those prices seem pretty decent. Salutaria!

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A fragment of the Edict on Maximum Prices, on display in Berlin.

Beer In Ads #1411: They Rationed Everything

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Sunday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1944. Since the pilgrims traditionally landed today at Plymouth Rock, in 1620, and established a colony there, this ad by Budweiser during World War II contrasts that event with wartime rationing that was going on through the Second World War. Rationing feels so remote to us, but my mother was a “General” in the scrap metal army, or something like that, because my grandfather was a mechanic and that allowed her to amass a lot of scrap metal, apparently. I have a newspaper clipping reporting on her “promotion.”

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