Brookston Beer Bulletin

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Anchor Cans California Lager

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Anchor Brewing announced yesterday that they’ll be releasing their popular California Lager in cans as a part of ” two unique partnerships,” in which “a portion of proceeds from Anchor California Lager sales will support the National Parks Conservation Association and the California State Parks Foundation.” Putting the beer in cans, they believe, will “offer greater convenience and versatility for outdoor activities.”

From the press release:

“Parks are one of our most precious resources that everyone from coast-to-coast can enjoy,” said Keith Greggor, CEO of Anchor Brewing Company. “Anchor California Lager already has tremendous success supporting parks in our home state and we look forward to supporting the National Parks Conversation Association’s work protecting our national parks.”

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Anchor’s history, California’s first genuine lager, and our country’s state parks were born in the second half of the 19th Century. Today, California is home to 280 state parks and 26 of America’s 401 national parks. To celebrate that unique heritage, Anchor Brewing Company has partnered with the National Parks Conservation Association and the California State Parks Foundation to support their efforts to conserve and enrich the natural beauty and history of parks nationwide.

And here’s the background info on the beer:

Anchor Brewing Company’s roots go back to the Gold Rush, long before icehouses and modern refrigeration made traditional lagers a viable option. In 1876—thanks to an ice pond in the mountains and a belief that anything is possible in the Golden State—a little brewery named Boca created California’s first genuine lager. Anchor California Lager is a re-creation of this historic beer.

Crisp, clean, and refreshing, its rich golden color, distinctive aroma, lingering creamy head, balanced depth of flavor, and incredibly smooth finish are like no other lager today. Made in San Francisco with two-row California barley, Cluster hops (the premier hop in 19th-century California), and Anchor’s own lager yeast, Anchor California Lager is kräusened and lagered in the cellars of the brewery. This all-malt brew is a delicious celebration of California’s unique brewing heritage.

That should be a fun beer to take on a hike or camping, not to mention the beer helps what I consider to be a very worthy cause, our state and national parks.

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Beer In Ads #1190: Myron Fohr For Blatz

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Tuesday’s ad is for Blatz Beer, from 1950. 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 race car driver Myron Fohr, who completed the Indianapolis 500 two times, finishing 4th and 11th. He, at least, was born in Milwaukee.

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The Effect Of Color On Taste

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I’ve seen several different studies examining the effect of the color of food or a beverage on how it tastes. But this is the first one I’ve seen where they’ve looked at the color of the room in which the tasting is held. This study used wine, but it would undoubtedly be the same for beer, or any other drink. It certainly makes sense that your environment would effect the experience of tasting. Or as this short article in Drinks Business puts it, the “environment in which you experience a wine has a ‘profound’ effect on how you will perceive it to taste.” The study, conducted by Charles Spence, a professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University, concluded that “Lighting and music can act as digital seasoning for food and wine.” I”m not quite sure about sound, but perhaps. Anyway, it brings up all sorts of possibilities about how we taste, and where. I’d certainly like to see more of this kind of research.

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Be careful what room you drink in, especially what color it is.

Beer In Ads #1189: Sid Caesar 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 features comedian Sid Caesar, who was best known for his variety television series Your Show of Shows. He was born in Yonker, New York, but according to the ad, he’s one of an increasing number of celebrities doing these ads who merely visited Milwaukee.

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Camille Paglia’s Take On The Minimum Drinking Age

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While I don’t often opine about America’s idiotic minimum drinking age, one of the oldest in the civilized world, I do believe it should be 18 for a variety of reasons. Author Camille Paglia, in the current issue of Time magazine, had a rather forceful, nicely angry piece on why she believes It’s Time to Let Teenagers Drink Again, which is the title in print. Online it’s called The Drinking Age Is Past Its Prime.

She’s pulling no punches, and believes it should be “repealed,” if indeed that’s even the right way to change it. She writes: “It is absurd and unjust that young Americans can vote, marry, enter contracts and serve in the military at 18 but cannot buy an alcoholic drink in a bar or restaurant. The age-21 rule sets the U.S. apart from all advanced Western nations and lumps it with small or repressive countries like Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Indonesia, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.” I don’t necessarily agree with everything she has to say, but enough. Plus it’s great to see such an unabashed argument in favor of relaxing that particular law in so mainstream a media outlet.

But my favorite line is the way she characterizes alcohol’s positive attributes. “Alcohol relaxes, facilitates interaction, inspires ideas and promotes humor and hilarity.” She concludes.

Alcohol’s enhancement of direct face-to-face dialogue is precisely what is needed by today’s technologically agile generation, magically interconnected yet strangely isolated by social media. Clumsy hardcore sexting has sadly supplanted simple hanging out over a beer at a buzzing dive. By undermining the art of conversation, the age-21 law has also had a disastrous effect on our arts and letters, with their increasing dullness and mediocrity. This tyrannical infantilizing of young Americans must stop!

Here, here. Few things in society are better than the simple pleasure of sharing a beer with friends. I didn’t realize it was improving our nation’s “arts and letters,” but hey, I’ll go with it.

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Beer In Ads #1188: Bert Lahr For Blatz

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Sunday’s ad is for Blatz Beer, from 1953. 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 Bert Lahr, who was best known for his role as the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz. He was born in New York City, but according to the ad copy during “25 years of trouping, I’ve come to know Milwaukee almost as well as my own hometown of Manhattan.”

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Beer In Ads #1187: John Payne For Blatz

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Saturday’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 actor John Payne, who was most known for his rolls in noir pictures, though I remember him best as the lawyer who got Santa Claus off in Miracle on 34th Street. He was born in Roanoke, Virginia, but according to the ad copy during at least at some point in his life he’s “been to Milwaukee,” which seems tenuous at best.

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Beer In Ads #1186: 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,” and one of the small panels shows him on his boat “Minkote” in Lake Arrowhead. There is a Lake Arrowhead in Nekoosa, in central Wisconsin, but it seems more likely it’s the one in California, which is near San Bernardino, not too far from the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, where he lived most of his adult life as a working film and television actor.

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Beer Glassware Catalog 1892

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Here’s an interesting historical artifact. It’s a trade catalog for bars and restaurants from a company in New York, the L & M Goldsticker company, which published an “illustrated catalogue” of “bar room glassware and bottlers supplies” in 1892.

Here’s the cover of the 80-page catalog:

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And the back cover shows the brick and mortar store on Fulton Street in New York City.

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They carried a surprising array of beer glasses for the discerning bar, including some for specific types of beer, along with a number of other accessories and equipment. You can see the entire catalogue online at the Hagley Digital Archives. Below is a majority of the pages with beer glasses on them.

Pages 6 and 7:
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Page 12:
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Pages 14 and 15:
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Pages 16 and 17:
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Pages 22 and 23:
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Beer In Ads #1185: Groucho Marx For Blatz

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Thursday’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 famous comedian and actor Groucho Marx, who was born in New York City, but according to the ad copy he “played Milwaukee dozens of times.” At least they changed the headline from “I lived in Milwaukee” to “I’ve been to Milwaukee, I ought to know…”

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