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Beer In Art #115: Ralston Crawford’s Buffalo Grain Elevators

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art-beer
This week’s work of art is by the Canadian-born artist Ralston Crawford. He spent his childhood in Buffalo, and most of the rest of his life traveling and in America, which is reflected in his oeuvre. Today’s painting, Buffalo Grain Elevators, was completed in 1937 and today is part of the Smithsonian Institute’s American Art Museum and is a part of their Scenes of American Life collection.

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The Scenes of American Life exhibition describes the painting like this:

The huge grain elevators lining the waterfront in Buffalo, New York, fascinated Crawford, who transformed bridges, factories, and other modern industrial structures into volumes and planes. Here he contrasts the massive cylinders of the elevators with the thin lines of the pitched roof in the foreground, the delicate rungs of a ladder, and a series of gently sloping wires.

There’s a biography of Crawford at Wikipedia and also at the Smithsonian Institute and the Hollis Taggert Galleries. You can also find links to more of Crawford’s art at the ArtCyclopedia.

Taybeh: Palestine’s Only Brewery

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Palestine has exactly one brewery, Taybeh Beer, founded in 1993 by Nadim Khoury, who learned to homebrew while living in Boston. He returned to his native Palestine after the “Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993, one of the approximately 12,000 Palestinian families who returned to the region to help kickstart the emerging Palestinian economy.” Since then business has grown, and is beer is imported to Germany and the UK, and they’re working on the U.S., but according to the video so far we won’t allow them to import because we don’t recognize Palestine as a separate nation. So much for supporting peace in the Middle East. At any rate, the video below gives a nice overview of the brewery.

“For Good Living” Brown Derby Promotional Film

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If you say my last post, Beer In Ads #314: Brown Derby’s For Good Living, now you know why I chose a Brown Derby ad. I also came across this promotional film from the same year as the ad, 1937, which was called “For Good Living,” and sponsored at the time by Safeway Stores. It’s a silent promotional film, but after some cheesy introductions shows the brewery where Brown Derby is made. Really, there’s a lot of early brewery porn. Obviously the basic process of making and packaging beer hasn’t changed all that much in the 70+ years since this video was made, but the machinery sure has. At just under twenty minutes, it’s a pretty thorough virtual tour, and includes both bottles and cans being produced. After the tour, the final minutes show the planned “For Good Living” advertising campaign. It’s quite a time capsule. I think every brewer should watch it. I’d love to hear some of their thoughts on then vs. now.

Beer In Ads #314: Brown Derby’s For Good Living

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Friday’s ad is from 1937 and is for Brown Derby beer, a beer often found in, as the ad even states (which is, I believe, illegal today) Safeway grocery stores. The text of the ad features the plans of the Leavitt family, their “plan of Good Living.” Here’s how beer fits in:

“We want to enjoy all the good things of life our income permits,” says Mrs. Leavitt. “We always keep plenty of Brown Derby Beer on hand. Because we’ve found it equals imported Pilsner, but costs less.

It’s interesting that only three years after Prohibition ended, beer advertising was targeting imported pilsners for comparison, not other American beers.

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The United States Of Good Beer?

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At the end of January, the Houston Press’ Brew Blog did a map showing a beer for every state that seemed to miss the mark for more than a few of their choices. I ranted about it in my post, The United States of Beer? Apparently I wasn’t the only one, because an alert reader (thanks, David) tipped me that they’ve redone the map, this time calling it The United States of Good Beer, though over at Good, the internet portal that originally created the map and posted it to the Houston Press.

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Seeing as the map was done by the paper’s food section, I wasn’t too surprised how embarrassing the first attempt was, but in the new effort they at least reached out to their readers for suggestions. And it shows in the Good Beer Map, which is light years ahead of the first one.

Sadly, Idaho still got left out, despite their being at least 8 breweries and 15 brewpubs in the the state. Surely, someone could picked one of those instead of leaving an empty question mark?

Good’s Food editor Nicola Twilley remarks that after seeing Beer Wars, “It’s clearly time for a beer revolution.” And while I’m sincerely thrilled she’s getting up to speed, I’m constantly amazed that so many “foodies” don’t seem to get that beer is food and have paid it almost no attention whatsoever even as it has undergone such a revolutionary change in the U.S. over the past thirty years. How could so many “food professionals” committed to what they put in their body completely miss that? Most have noticed wine is different now than it was 30 or 40 years ago, but beer … not so much. That’s such a sticking point for me that while I’m glad things are changing, I can’t help but continue to be curmudgeonly about this dichotomy of how the two beverages are treated.

Still, I’m encouraged that they were swayed by people’s comments, admitted mistakes, and forged ahead to create a better map of America’s beer scene.

You can see the new map full size here, and as before it’s easier to read the key on the bigger map.

Beer In Ads #313: Schlitz’ Best Round I’ve Had All Day!

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Thursday’s ad is yet another one for Schlitz, but from the early 1950s. The winner of the golf club’s tournament looks pompously out at us while pouring a Schlitz into the trophy. “Best round I’ve had all day!” Exactly how many rounds of golf does this smug bastard have time for in a 24-hour period of time? Doesn’t he a least have a job so he can afford his club membership?

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Brekle’s Brown Released By Anchor

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This evening at Anchor Brewing in San Francisco, the brewery released their newest beer, Brekle’s Brown, named for the very first brewer at the brewery that would eventually become Anchor, Gottlieb Brekle.

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Mark Carpenter, Anchor’s brewmaster showing off his latest creation, Brekle’s Brown.

The beer is a beautiful bright mahogany, with a tan head. The nose is malty sweet, with nutty aromas that continue through to the flavor. With a dry finish, it’s nicely sweet on the palate, and belies its 6% a.b.v. Easily a session brown. Another great complement to the stable of Anchor beers.

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I’ll have more later on the event later, but with just another half hour to go, I’m going to go have another beer before heading on to the next event.