Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Beer In Ads #2054: You May Serve The Schlitz When Ready, Gridley

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Wednesday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1964. In this ad, nearly thirty years later, they’re still talking about the story of Admiral George Dewey, who destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay in the Philippines in the spring of 1898, without a single American casualty. This was during the Spanish-American War. Besides the art being far more minimalist, in this version of the story after their victory, the Schlitz office in Manila the next day delivered to Dewey and his crew “two bottles for every man jack in Dewey’s command,” whereas the earlier ad claims it was 3600 bottles of Schlitz, one for every sailor who took part in the battle.

Also, the phrase in ad, “splice the main brace” is in fact a nautical term defined as meaning “an order given aboard naval vessels to issue the crew with an alcoholic drink” by Wikipedia, and Origins of Naval Terminology claims. “It was the custom, after the main brace was properly spliced, to serve grog to the entire crew. Thus, today, after a hard day (or, not so hard day), the phrase has become an invitation to have a drink.” So that’s a real thing. I’ll have to figure out a way to work that into a conversation.

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Beer In Ads #2053: “Thank You,” Said Admiral Dewey

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Tuesday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1935. In this ad, they tell the story of Admiral George Dewey, who destroyed the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay in the Philippines in the spring of 1898, without a single American casualty. This was during the Spanish-American War. Apparently one of his rewards for this heroic feat was that the Schlitz office in Manila the next day delivered to Dewey and his crew 3600 bottles of Schlitz, one for every sailor who took part in the battle.

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Beer In Ads #2052: Hamlet Tries Schlitz

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Monday’s ad is for Schlitz, from the early 1900s. This was from a series of advertising cards that would have been handed out to people, sort of like baseball cards, with a series usually tied together by some theme. In this ad, showing a scene from Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” specifically Act I, Scene II, the script has been altered ever so slightly to include this line, said to Hamlet by the king. “And try, Schlitz Milwaukee Beer.” I certainly don’t remember that line from the original. Maybe I’ve been seeing the wrong version all these years.

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Beer In Ads #2051: Purity Built It

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Sunday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1900. In this ad, the story of the Schlitz Brewery’s honest is told, that and how “Purity Built It.” That, along with the illustration of pure-looking woman astride an unusually large bottle (unless she’s extraordinarily diminutive) and holding up another symbol of purity, the flower.

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Beer In Ads #2050: Top Of The World

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Saturday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1900. In this ad, an impressively large woman sits on the Arctic circle of the Earth, hops and barley in her hair, opening the tap stuck into Milwaukee, Wisconsin and filling a bottle of beer almost as tall as the Earth itself. I can’t even imagine what size the fermenters would have to have been to brew that much beer just to fill that one bottle. No wonder they felt like they were on top of the world. That is pretty impressive.

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Beer In Ads #2049: There’s Only One Favorite

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Friday’s ad is for Miller High Life, from 1950. In this ad, from the back of a baseball game program, a star player who’s tipping his hat, revealing a buzz cut, is taking a bow while holding four bats. So maybe he’s just warming up and getting ready for his at-bat. I’m not sure if he’s the favorite or the beer is, but my money’s on the beer.

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Beer In Ads #2048: Opinions Differ …

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Thursday’s ad is for Miller High Life, from 1948. In this ad, from the back of a baseball game program, two players are arguing while an umpire. It’s to say exactly what’s going on since the catcher appears to holding the bat. How, or why, he took it from the batter is anybody’s guess. The ball is on the ground and another player is laying down behind, possibly on a base, and watching the scene unfold. As for the ump, he just seems to be standing there serenely, with his hands folded in front of him, waiting for the storm to subside. I think they could all use a beer.

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Beer In Ads #2045: The Brown Bottle Joke

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Monday’s ad is for Miller High Life, from 1913, published in the Telegraph Herald on July 2, 1913. In this curious ad, titled “The Result of Good Brewing—,” the scene is a parade of Germany soldiers. Though it’s hard to read, toward the bottom it reads “High Life in Germany,” while to the left the Miller Girl has been inserted into the illustration as if she’s watching the parade.

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But even more curious about this ad is the inset box, “The Brown Bottle Joke,” where they try to explain why using a clear bottle is actually better than using brown, and they do so without even mentioning why brown is preferred or indeed anything about what effect light would have on the beer after bottling.

The brown bottle fallacy has been so completely exploded that little is left to be said in defense of that side of the question which advocated the use of dark bottles to the absolute exclusion of light bottles. It is admitted that common beer comes in dark bottles and that beer of a high degree of stability is preferably bottled in light bottles.

Wahl-Henius Institute of Fermentology (America’s greatest authorities on brewing) are in accord with this view. Here is their statement in relation to the bottling of high-grade beer:

“FOR SUCH BEERS THE LIGHT BOTTLE is PREFERABLY EMPLOYED because it can more readily be inspected before filling to insure thorough cleanliness and because the finished package reveals at a glance whether the contents meet the requirements of the consumer as to color, clarity and freedom from sedimentation.”

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