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Beer In Ads #1199: Duffy’s Tavern For Blatz

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Thursday’s ad is for Blatz Beer, from 1950. The ad is sort of part of Blatz’s “I lived in Milwaukee, I ought to know” series from the later Forties and Fifties that featured prominent celebrities, sports figures and famous folks from Milwaukee claiming to know “Blatz is Milwaukee’s Finest Beer” because they lived there, or near there, at some point in their lives. This one doesn’t so much feature a person as a radio show, Duffy’s Tavern, a radio sitcom about the misadventures of bartender/bar manager Archie. Archie was played by Ed Gardner, who also wrote and produced the popular show during its ten-year run. Despite the ads showing Gardner in his role as “Archie,” I guess he wasn’t famous enough (maybe since it was radio no one knew what he looked like?). That’s also why it doesn’t use the “I’m from …” of “I’ve been to …” Milwaukee-focused opening line, and instead the show’s fictional bar serves Blatz as their exclusive beer. Also, I’m pleased to announce that this is the last Blatz ad in this series that I’ve found so tomorrow we’ll be returning to random beer ads.

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Beer In Ads #1198: Pat O’Brien For Blatz

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Wednesday’s ad is for Blatz Beer, from 1949. The ad is part of Blatz’s “I lived in Milwaukee, I ought to know” series from the later Forties and Fifties that featured prominent celebrities, sports figures and famous folks from Milwaukee claiming to know “Blatz is Milwaukee’s Finest Beer” because they lived there, or near there, at some point in their lives. This one features well-known actor Pat O’Brien, who was born and raised in Milwaukee.

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Beer In Ads #1197: William Gargan For Blatz

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Tuesday’s ad is for Blatz Beer, from 1951. The ad is part of Blatz’s “I lived in Milwaukee, I ought to know” series from the later Forties and Fifties that featured prominent celebrities, sports figures and famous folks from Milwaukee claiming to know “Blatz is Milwaukee’s Finest Beer” because they lived there, or near there, at some point in their lives. This one features actor William Gargan, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, but like many of the Blatz spokespeople, he’s visited Milwaukee.

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Bamforth Beer Cartoons

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Having lived on this side of the pond my whole life, I’d never encountered Bamforth’s comic postcards until very recently. The Bamforth company is still in business, but apparently was founded in 1904 as a photography and film studio to make picture postcards, and by the end of the First World War was producing 20 million postcards each year. In 1910, they started creating the comic art postcards. Over the next 90 years, approximately 50,000 comic designs were published, with most of them by just four staff artists — Douglas Tempest, Arnold Taylor, Philip Taylor and Brian Fitzpatrick — along with a few additional freelance artists, like the well-known Donald McGill. According to their history, “by 1960 Bamforth Postcards had become the world’s largest publisher of comic postcards.”

Bamforth’s Postcards were the market leader throughout the twentieth century. Their artists poking fun at every aspect of human activity. They commented on politics, fashion and the changes in social activity and perhaps most famously they invaded the toilet and the bedroom. Sex, in various guises and disguises, was the main subject from the start of the genre.

While sex and being “cheeky” may have been their main focus, beer also figured prominently in quite a few of their postcards.

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Quite a few were part of their seaside series, meant to be sent home from vacations.

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And still others were just odd.

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I’m sure there were many more involving beer, and there were also quite a few depicting pub life. Just poking around eBay and the web, I found a few beer-themed postcards, which you can see in the slideshow below. Enjoy.

Beer In Ads #1196: Hank Marino For Blatz

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Monday’s ad is for Blatz Beer, from 1951. The ad is part of Blatz’s “I lived in Milwaukee, I ought to know” series from the later Forties and Fifties that featured prominent celebrities, sports figures and famous folks from Milwaukee claiming to know “Blatz is Milwaukee’s Finest Beer” because they lived there, or near there, at some point in their lives. This one is a second ad featuring professional bowler Hank Marino, who moved to Milwaukee in 1930 to open his own bowling alley. In the first ad, he was bowling in a coat and tie, whereas here he’s more casual, with an open white shirt and no tie. But he’s still got that goofy grin.

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Beer In Ads #1195: Dick Wiken For Blatz

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Sunday’s ad is for Blatz Beer, from 1949. The ad is part of Blatz’s “I lived in Milwaukee, I ought to know” series from the later Forties and Fifties that featured prominent celebrities, sports figures and famous folks from Milwaukee claiming to know “Blatz is Milwaukee’s Finest Beer” because they lived there, or near there, at some point in their lives. This one features sculptor Dick Wiken, who was born in Milwaukee. Accounts refer to him as an architectural sculptor, and after 1945 most of his work involved larger commissions, like his sculpture of Diana on the Milwaukee Athletic Club building.

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Beer In Ads #1194: E. Simms Campbell For Blatz

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Saturday’s ad is for Blatz Beer, from 1952. The ad is part of Blatz’s “I lived in Milwaukee, I ought to know” series from the later Forties and Fifties that featured prominent celebrities, sports figures and famous folks from Milwaukee claiming to know “Blatz is Milwaukee’s Finest Beer” because they lived there, or near there, at some point in their lives. This one features cartoonist E. Simms Campbell, who was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and worked most of his professional life in new York City, but according to the ad copy he’s visited, or at least “been to Milwaukee.”

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Beer In Ads #1193: Dan Duryea For Blatz

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Friday’s ad is for Blatz Beer, from 1952. The ad is part of Blatz’s “I lived in Milwaukee, I ought to know” series from the later Forties and Fifties that featured prominent celebrities, sports figures and famous folks from Milwaukee claiming to know “Blatz is Milwaukee’s Finest Beer” because they lived there, or near there, at some point in their lives. This one features actor Dan Duryea, who was born in White Plains, New York, but according to the ad copy he at least at some point in his life “lived in Milwaukee.” This is the second celebrity that did a second ad for Blatz that I’ve found. I thought there was only Alfred Lunt, but then I found this second Duryea one.

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Superhero Beer

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Look, up in the sky … it’s a bird … it’s a plane … it’s a beer? Here’s a fun design project by Orlando, Florida graphic designer Marcelo Rizzetto. He’s taken the superheroes from the Justice League of America (JLA), and designed a beer for each of them. He’s calling the series Super Hero Beers, and so far he’s done seven of the members (eight counting the twins), with more promised.

JLA-beers

While Rizzetto is a professional graphic designer, this project was undertaken just for the fun of it. In trying to imagine which beer might represent each superhero, he’s made a few missteps with the names of the beers, but overall it is a lot of fun to see.

I can’t imagine Warner Brothers (who owns DC Comics, which in turn owns the characters) would ever license any alcoholic product for the JLA, because they’ve been very fussy about it, even recalling the cover of Action Comics #869 in 2008 because it showed Superman possibly sharing a beer with his stepfather. But in 2012, inside of Actions Comics #15 (Vol. 2) Superman is shown drinking a toast with a bottle of wine, so perhaps they’ve relaxed a little about that.

Batman: The Dark Beer (Dark Ale Beer)
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Superman: Super Strong Beer (Strong Pale Lager)
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Aquaman: Aqua Beer (Belgian Blond Ale)
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Wonder Woman: The Wonder Beer (Premium American Lager)
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Green Lantern: St. Patrick Green Beer (Pale Ale)
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The Flash: The Flash Beer (Irish Red Ale)
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The Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna: Twins Framboise (Lambic Framboise)
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Next Session Mixes Things Up, Beer Mostly

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For our 88th Session, our hosts are Jessica Boak and Ray Bailey, from Boak & Bailey, who I’m happy to say stepped up to fill in the void that was the June Session. For their topic, they’ve chosen Traditional Beer Mixes, and have suggested several options for participating in the June Session:

In his 1976 book Beer and Skittles early beer writer Richard Boston lists several:

  • Lightplater – bitter and light ale.
  • Mother-in-law — old and bitter.
  • Granny — old and mild.
  • Boilermaker — brown and mild.
  • Blacksmith –stout and barley wine.
  • Half-and-half – bitter and stout, or bitter and mild.

We’d like you to drink one or more from that list and write about it on Friday 6 June… and that’s it.

beer-and-skittles

We’re deliberately aiming for something broad and accessible, but there is one rule — no ‘beer cocktails’! It’s been done, for starters. So, mix two beers, not four; and steer clear of syrups, spirits, flavourings and crushed ice.

If you need further inspiration…

  1. Try ordering them in a pub — do bar staff still know the ropes?
  2. Use your own sources to find a traditional mix not on Boston’s list, e.g. Ram’n’Spesh in Young’s London pubs.
  3. Make the same mix with several different beers — are there rules for the optimal Granny?
  4. Experiment — Blacksmith IPA with black IPA, anyone?

So start mixing things up. On Friday, June 6, D-Day will also be Mix-Day. Let them know when your post is up either by commenting on their announcement page, emailing them at boakandbailey@gmail.com, or tweeting your post.

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