Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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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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Beer In Ads #1410: A Blue Ribbon Christmas

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Saturday’s holiday ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, from 1941. “Isn’t Christmas Fun?” A frazzled husband responds. “Could Be! If You’d Only Give Me A “33 to 1″ Chance!” Eventually his wife understands, and he enjoys a beer before turning into a decorating demon, prompting her to suggest he may be getting a whole case of PBRs on Christmas Day.

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Beer In Ads #1409: Blatz Mistletoe

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Friday’s holiday ad is for Blatz, from 1952. According to the ad, while many things have changed in the last century (or more), some things have remained the same, including beer and the use of predatory mistletoe. Who uses such a long ribbon to position it directly above the intended victim’s head? And is it just me, or is the ad showing the backwards slide of women’s rights? The 19th century picture depicts a couple courting, but on somewhat equal footing, sitting side by side on a couch. By contrast, the 20th century (albeit the 1950s) shows the woman standing, serving her beau, as a good woman of that decade was supposed to. I’m not sure I’d call that progress.

Blatz-1952-mistletoe

Beer In Ads #1406: 62 Individual Reasons To Drink

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Tuesday’s ad is for the Coopers 62, from 2011. Although it’s a newer ad, given that I post my own reasons to drink for any given day, this ad certainly spoke to me, despite most of the reasons being fairly pedestrian. But in a sense, that was the point, that any reason was good enough to drink this Australian beer. Whether that’s true, I couldn’t tell you. I like their sparkling ale, but they don’t strike me as a pilsner brewery.

Coopers62

Big Brands Continue To Slide

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For the last several years, sales of some of the major beer brands have been slipping, and not just the sub-premiums or secondary packages but even once mighty flagships. 24/7 Wall Street has a new list of some of these brands, characterized as Beers Americans No Longer Drink. Using data from Beer Marketer’s Insights, here are seven brands that have lost significant sales, at least 20%, between 2013 and 2008. The negative number following the name is how much sales are down in that six-year period.

  • Miller High Life -21.2%
  • Budweiser -27.6%
  • Milwaukee’s Best Light -40.6%
  • Milwaukee’s Best -57.0%
  • Miller Genuine Draft -58.3%
  • Budweiser Select -61.1%

Some additional analysis and reasons for the decline, according to 24/7 Wall St:

Another key factor in the weakening sales has been price dynamics. “Beer prices were increased more aggressively over the last five years than wine and spirits,” Shepard said. Many people in the industry believe that, as a result, some customers replaced buying beer with the now relatively less expensive wines and spirits, he explained.

Several other products were also gaining at the expense of big brand-name beers, Shepard noted. While some customers have been moving to wine and spirits, others were switching to imported beer, particularly Mexican imports. Indeed, in the five years through 2013, shipments of Mexican brands Dos Equis and Modelo Especial more-than doubled. Similarly, he added, “Some [drinkers] are moving to craft [beer]. Clearly, there’s been a trade-up in the industry.”

Craft beers have largely bucked the overall downtrend in beer sales. From 2008 to 2013, shipments of craft beer rose by 80.1% to a total of more than 16 million barrels, or 7.6% of the U.S. beer market. While the craft beer category now outsells Budweiser, it remains a relatively niche market. For comparison, the nation’s top-selling brand, Bud Light, shipped 38 million barrels in 2013, accounting for 18% of all beer shipped.

big-brands

Beer In Ads #1405: Hay, Good Wholesome Beer

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Monday’s ad is for the Brewers’ Society, from 1956. Similar to the ads in America by the United States Brewers Foundation that ran around the same time, the British ads used taglines like “Good Wholesome BEER” and “The best long drink in the world!” After working in the fields all day, making giant hay bales, who wouldn’t be dreaming of a pint of beery goodness? But I love the way they put it. “Beer refreshes you all right — but it does much more than that. It’s an invigorating drink. Beer bucks you up as well as cools you down.”

UK-Beer-Ad

Beer In Ads #1404: The Height Of Hospitality

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Sunday’s ad is for Pabst Blue Ribbon, from 1911. I love the outfit on the server, that must be some posh establishment he works for. I love that Pabst is working so hard to position PBR as the classy beer, and especially this sentiment: “Pabst Blue Ribbon is the ultimate choice of all who have a keen faculty of selection.” Priceless. People who who are good at picking things?

Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer. Judge magazine, June 10, 1911