Friday’s ad is a 1951 ad for Rheingold Beer, featuring Miss Rheingold for that year, Elise Gammon. In the ad, Miss Gammon is ready for the hunt, surrounded by hound dogs. Did Americans ever do the full British fox hunts? Because old ads sure seem to use the theme a lot.
Thursday’s ad is a 1956 ad for Rheingold Beer, featuring Miss Rheingold for that year, Millie Merritt. In the ad, Miss Merritt is wearing an exotic red dress sitting in the old barn with her squeeze box accordion, waiting for the performance, as the sign behind her promises, to take place “tonig.”
Although I missed last year’s Oregon Brewers Festival for the first time in many years, it felt like it had been at least five years since I’d been back. That’s how much I missed Portland, and I was thrilled to be there again. After the Brewer’s Dinner Wednesday night, I attended the brunch, this year held at McMenamin’s Crystal Ballroom, and helped setup for the event beforehand, as well. After everyone feasted and prepared their stomachs for the day’s drinking, what looked to be close to 1200 people lined up for the parade. That’s just a guess, but it was easily the biggest crowd I’d seen for the parade, and this was my third time, of the five so far. Many of the usual suspects were there, the band, the Rogue Friars, people in kilts, people wearing literal hopheads, etc. This year’s Grand Marshall was Portland legend Fred Eckhardt who led the parade via pedicab down to the Tom McCall Waterfront Park, the annual home of the beer festival. Here are some photos from the parade. Enjoy.
Pedicab leading the OBF Parade with Grand Marshall Fred Eckhardt and OBF founder Art Larrance.
Here we come.
… walking down the street,
We get the funniest looks from …
Everyone we meet.
After arriving at the festival grounds, it was time to tap the keg and officially start the festival. Look for the ceremonies coming soon in part 2.
Wednesday’s ad is a 1948 ad for Rheingold Beer, featuring Miss Rheingold for that year, Pat Quinlan. In the ad, Miss Quinlan is carrying two baskets with three puppies and kittens in each. With the garden in the background, it almost looks like she’s just come back from picking them.
Tuesday’s ad is a 1958 ad for Rheingold Beer, featuring Miss Rheingold for that year, Madelyn Darrow. In the ad, Miss Darrow is apparently trying to figure out how many hats she can fit into a three-wheeled precursor to the smart car.
Today in 1788, New York became the 11th state.
New York
New York Breweries
New York Brewery Guides
Guild: New York State Brewers Association
State Agency: New York State Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control
Package Mix:
Beer Taxes:
Economic Impact (2010):
Legal Restrictions:
Some counties may retain the Sunday morning beer prohibition which the state discontinued as of July 30, 2006. Twelve dry towns, mostly in western region of state. All liquor stores must be owned by a single owner, who owns that store and lives within a certain distance of it — effectually banning chain liquor stores from the state. New York City law does not allow open containers of alcohol in public. Thus, having a beer on the stoop of a building may draw a citation. However, practically, bagged containers of alcohol are consumed in violation of the rule, since opaque bags conceal evidence necessary to prosecute a citation and it is difficult to warrant a search of the bag without other evidence (evidence discovered due to an improper search is inadmissible in court).
Data complied, in part, from the Beer Institute’s Brewer’s Almanac 2010, Beer Serves America, the Brewers Association, Wikipedia and my World Factbook. If you see I’m missing a brewery link, please be so kind as to drop me a note or simply comment on this post. Thanks.
For the remaining states, see Brewing Links: United States.
Monday’s ad is a 1951 ad for Rheingold Beer, featuring Miss Rheingold for that year, Elise Gammon. In the ad, Miss Gammon is arriving — or leaving? — a cocktail party and is either taking her mink off or putting on — it could be either, maybe that was the point?
Our 54th Session turns sour … sour beer, that is. Jon Abernathy, who writes The Brew Site, has chosen the topic Sour Beer, which he describes like so:
Instead we’ll be in the heat of the summer and while we’ve had Sessions covering Summer Beers, Fruit Beers, and Wheat Beers already (all which could suitably cover summertime beer enjoyment), it occurred to me that the topic of Sour Beers fits well within the season and (surprisingly!) hasn’t come up yet.
I’ve been gradually exploring Sour Beer and finding myself seeking out and trying various beers which fit into the “sour” realm (yes, I’m purposefully avoiding the word “style” here as it is entirely too loaded): beers inoculated with wild yeasts, soured with fruit (often in conjunction with those wild yeasts and barrel-aging), lactic acid beers like Berliner Weisse-influenced beers and the rare Gose, and so on. It’s a challenging area, both in acquiring a taste for soured beer and in brewing them—fortunately many brewers are being adventurous and branching out these days, giving us many more options.
So that’s our topic for August: Sour Beer. I’ll leave the implementation up to you, but here are some suggestions: seek out and review a sour beer of some kind; write about your experiences with brewing a sour beer; talk about your first sour beer experience; who’s brewing the better sours—Belgians or Americans (or somebody else)?; perhaps a contrary approach—what you don’t like about sour beers. Or if you have the perfect sour beer idea you want to write about, I can’t wait to read it!
Personally, I LOVE sour beer, so this one should be fun. So practice your pucker face and get ready to write all about it for the next Session on Friday, August 5.
Our 78th Guinness is the scan of an original mock-up using the tagline “Lovely day for a Guinness.” Most likely it was meant for the time period during World War II given the military men and the Toucans flying in formation.
While I don’t put any stock in astrology, in 1980 Guinness put out a calendar with each month representing one of the zodiac signs, and I thought it would be fun to share these throughout the year.
Leo, the lion, is from July 23-August 23. To learn more, see:
