It looks like Santa Claus prefers red ale.
Guinness Ad #98: Guinness At Home
Our 98th Guinness ad shows a happy and satisfied-looking can of Guinness relaxing at home in a green comfy chair. The slogan for the ad is “Guinness at Home.”
Breweries Per Capita By State 2010
I recently stumbled upon this nice infographic showing Breweries Per Capita By State 2010 based on data compiled by the Brooklyn Growler. It was created by an assistant professor at Michigan State University, Phillip H. Howard, with help from a Ginger Ogilvie. The size of the circles neatly shows the relative number of breweries in each state, relative to its size, though knowing how populous each state is helps to make it more understandable.
You can see the map full size here.
Beer In Ads #500: Merry Christmas All Around!
Friday’s holiday ad — believe it or not, the 500th ad I’ve posted! — is for Schaefer beer. I don’t think it is, strictly speaking, an ad but a display piece, presumably for a bar or a retail store. I’m not sure of its age, but I’m guessing 1950s. I like the subtle double meaning of the slogan “Merry Christmas All Around!” Or maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it seems like both wishing everyone around a Merry Christmas and buying them “a round” … of Schaefer.
Occupy Pubs: A Glass Roots Movement
My good friend and colleague, Lisa Morrison — a.k.a. The Beer Goddess — just let me know about her latest project, and just in time for Christmas. She’s created a line of t-shirts, hats, stickers, iPhone cases, and so much more with a humorous nod to the Occupy Wall Street movement to show support for our favorite cause: the good beer movement. In this case, she’s calling it “Occupy Pubs: A Glass Roots Movement.”
You can order all manner of things with the Occupy Pubs logo at her Cafe Press page. The basic t-shirt shown below will run you $19.19, with fancier ones a little more. There are also styles for women, children and infants.
“We are the 5%!”
The Artist Behind 21st Amendment’s New Cans
UK-based illustrator Joe Wilson, whose clients include such high-powered companies as Adidas, British Airways, De Beers, GQ, Random House and Wired, designed the new artwork adorning the new 21st Amendment Brewery beer cans. So given his work for Wired, I suppose it’s no surprise that they featured his art on their Underwire Blog in a post entitled Chimp Astronaut Spaces Out in 21st Amendment Brewery’s ‘American Icon’ Artwork.
In an e-mail interview for the post, Wilson talked about the project. Regarding Bitter American. “That was a nice idea to center it around Ham the Astrochimp, who was undoubtedly a bitter American.”
The brewery’s marketing firm, TBD Agency, hired Smith on the strength of a Statue of Liberty illustration he did for Public Finance magazine. “They asked me to create a series of images based around the loose theme ‘American icons,'” Wilson said. “They already had the names of the beers, so this was a case of coming up with American subject matter and giving it a twist.”
21st Amendment wanted to establish a cheeky alternative to its mainstream competitors and that’s precisely what Wilson delivered with his drawings of the space chimp and other American icons. For the history-on-a-can theme, Wilson drew Paul Revere (for a black IPA called Back in Black), Abe Lincoln and his Mount Rushmore companions (Brew Free or Die IPA), the Statue of Liberty (Hell or High Watermelon wheat beer) and Franklin D. Roosevelt (Fireside Chat winter spiced ale).
Below are Wilson’s original sketches followed by the finished can label for each beer.
Brew Free or Die IPA
Hell or High Watermelon
Bitter American
Back in Black
Fireside Chat
It’s cool to see the changes — look carefully — from rough sketch to finished artwork. You can see more of Joe Wilson’s artwork at his website and at debut art.
Mills River, North Carolina On The Short List For New Sierra Nevada Brewery
After Sierra Nevada Brewing‘s plans to build a brewery in Black Mountain, North Carolina fell through, they set their sites on the nearby town of Mills River as one possible location they’re considering. According to Blue Ridge Now, the Mills River location “is now among a ‘handful’ of possible locations for California-based Sierra Nevada to build a second facility.” (And thanks to Win Bassett for the tip.) Sierra Nevada owner Ken Grossman was in North Carolina Thursday and was reportedly pleased by the “welcome reception” he received. He told Blue Ridge Now in a telephone interview:
“We like the community; we like the culture in the area and the focus on craft beer, and a vibrant craft (beer) community is certainly an appealing draw,” Grossman said. “The water is good; we’ve been well-received in the area — certainly a welcome reception helps, not that we haven’t been welcomed everywhere we’ve looked.”
“Logistically, it fits,” he said. “We began discussing the project five years ago but put it on the back burner a couple of times as we agonized over the concept of starting from scratch and building a second plant. But it really makes sense for us from an economic standpoint and a carbon footprint standpoint as far as shipping, as our Eastern markets have continued to see double-digit growth for a number of years.”
Apparently Brian Grossman, Ken’s son, would be relocating to run the Eastern Sierra Nevada operations, wherever it turns out to be.
UPDATE: Miles J. sent me a link to a similar story about Sierra nevada’s search foran East Coast location for a brewery that ran in today’s ChicoER.
Beer In Ads #499: Caroling Alone With Rheingold
Thursday’s holiday ad is another one for Rheingold Extra Dry Lager Beer, from 1952. This time, Miss Rheingold 1952, Anne Hogan, is out singing Christmas carols by herself, which means she has to hold both the lamp and the songbook.
Percy Street’s Beer Can Christmas Tree
Here’s a fun one. These are the kinds of press releases that help me get into the spirit of the holidays. The Percy Street Barbecue, a Philadelphia restaurant specializing in barbecue, also carries “over 60 varieties of canned beer” that they serve in custom galvanized steel buckets. Order 5 cans, and the 6th one is free.
For Christmas this year, they created an 8-foot tree made entirely of beer cans, over 400 in all. It “took General Manager Aric Ferrell and Desiree Howie, a staff member and local artist, over 12 hours to assemble.”
Now that’s the spirit. Who’s thirsty now.
(photos by Drea Rane.)
Make Lew Bryson’s Christmas A Happy One!
Okay people, time to step up to the bar. A month ago, a new project was announced on Kickstarter starring my friend and colleague Lew Bryson. The project is being produced by Rudy Vegliante of Green Leaf Productions and the idea is to create a series of six half-hour television shows starring Lew. With 30 days to go, only 6% of the needed funds to make the show a reality have been raised. A mere 65 people have pledged $3,716 of the $60K needed. Frankly, that’s pathetic.
C’mon, beer people. I’ve pledged $300, and would have gone higher if I wasn’t trying to make a rather large purchase at the moment. Surely, there are more than 65 people who have benefitted from Lew Bryson’s reviews, laughter, rantings, writings, speaking engagements, etc. Just his being in the beer community makes it a better place. We’ve all seen what happens when non-beer people try to make a TV show about beer. At best it comes off half-baked, full of misinformation, half-truths and propaganda. At worst, it’s a disaster. I’ve personally been involved in trying to get several such projects off the ground. None have gotten very far. It’s tough. Most people outside our rarified community don’t quite get why we’re so passionate about it, and that shows in the finished products that have been made so far.
So here’s a chance for one of our own to be the voice of craft beer, celebrating it in a way we can probably all agree with. And with guaranteed laughter, guffaws and unbridled chuckles thrown in for good measure. Lew is the right big galoot for this job.
Lew has just over 2,500 twitter followers, I have a little over 4,000. Even assuming for some overlap, that’s got to be around 6,000. If each one of you pledged just $10, Lew would be home for Christmas, with all the funding he needs. It’s the price of about two pints, give or take. Surely that’s not too much to create a one-of-kind television show about craft beer, by craft beer, for craft beer. Think of it as giving back to the beer community that has enriched your life, in the spirit of the holidays. Give Lew Bryson a Malty Christmas and a Hoppy New Year.
You can get all the details from my previous post or, better still, directly from the Kickstarter project page for American Beer Blogger.
Okay, I’m climbing back down off my soapbox. Resume holiday merriment.
Me and Lew at Berkeley’s Triple Rock last year.