Friday’s ad is for Sleutel Bier, from sometime between 1925 and 1950. It was brewed by De Stadsbrouwerij Dordrecht, which was founded in 1433. Sleutel Bier means “key beer,” which explains the logo.
Beer In Ads #1737: Heineken’s Bier Hotel Cafe Restaurant
Thursday’s ad is for Heineken, from maybe the 1950s. I love the style of the ad, nicely minimal, with mostly black and blue, and just a few splashes of color, some yellows, whites and Heineken red. Great silhouettes in a starry night sky.
Beer In Ads #1736: Munich Lager Beer Brewery
Wednesday’s ad is for the Suffolk Brewing Co., from sometime after 1875. You could be forgiven for thinking this was a German brewery, given the Munich Lager Beer Brewery banner headline, but in fact it was in Boston, Massachusetts, located at 423-443 Eighth Street. Another curiosity, especially given their calling themselves a “Munich Lager Beer Brewery,” is that the sign on the building identifies them as an “Ale & Porter Brewery.”
Beer In Ads #1735: Heineken Man Table
Tuesday’s ad is for Heineken, from maybe the late 1940s or 1950s. It’s somewhat surreal, showing a man in a suit holding up a table. On the table is a big bottle of Heineken, a full glass of beer and a plate of snacks. Not sure what they’re trying to say. Is it their idea of drinking oneself under the table? Only to become the table? I’m flummoxed.
Beer In Ads #1734: Rolling Stone Breakthrough Can
Monday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1982. Today is the anniversary of the first issue of Rolling Stone magazine, so I figured I’d run this ad from the back cover of the music magazine from 1982. It’s a kinda cool ad showing the can breaking through from inside the magazine, and people on the street in the photo surreally looking up at it. They even offered it as a poster you could send in to have sent to you.
Beer In Ads #1733: There Is Happiness In …
Sunday’s ad is for Heineken, from the 1950s or possibly very early 1960s. There Is Happiness In … features a very odd assortment of musicians either stuck inside Heineken bottles or perhaps just wearing them as costumes. You don’t often see a quartet consisting of trumpet, saxophone, tuba and drums, but maybe there are more of them outside the frame. Not sure about the Heineken part, but they certainly look festive and happy.
Beer In Ads #1732: Ik Drink Bier
Saturday’s ad is for Grolsch, from 1951. Ik Drink Bier, or “I Drink Beer,” is a pretty simple slogan, but apparently if you drink eleven glasses of beer you can lift a pink elephant by its trunk, which is pretty impressive, and a rather bold claim. The ad was done by famous illustrator Ib Antoni, a Danish artist. It’s actually based on a previous poster he’d done where the kid only had three mugs of beer with the letter “M” on them, so it appears he adapted it for Grolsch. Across the bottom was also an addition for the ad: “Bier moet. Bier doet je goed.” Which Google translate tells me is “Beer should. Beer is good for you,” but I feel like “should” is probably not right and there’s some idiomatic use I’m missing.
Beer In Ads #1731: Pint Glass Eyes
Friday’s ad is for Heineken, from 1951. I’ve always found this ad super creepy, but maybe it was effective, who knows. It certainly gives beer goggles a new angle, pint goggles, though I do like that the eye itself has become a drop of beer inside the glass looking out. And of course he’s wearing a bow tie.
Beer In Ads #1730: Zynda’s Bock
Thursday’s ad is for Zynda’s Bock, from who knows when. John Zynda operated a brewery in Detroit, Michigan, at least until he closed in 1947. Before prohibition, his brewery was known as the White Eagle Brewery, but during prohibition he went underground, literally, and kept brewing beer under the name, John Zynda & Sons Brewery. Here’s a story about they kept making bee through prohibition, from Found Michigan:
Trouble was brewing for Michigan beer companies—big and small—in the spring of 1917, when Michigan jump-started the Prohibition era with its own statewide ban on alcohol nearly three years before the 18th Amendment made drinking a national taboo. Just a handful of Michigan brewers would survive through to the end of Prohibition in 1933, and those that did had to get creative. Several of the bigger companies began making and promoting the still-legal canned hopped malt syrup (the key ingredient needed for homebrewing); Stroh’s turned to making ice cream; and Detroit beer tycoon John Zynda even took his operation underground—literally. In order to avoid the cops, he dug a tunnel from his bottling shop to a garage across the street, rolling the beer to safety a half barrel at a time. When a shipment was ready, he’d then send an empty delivery van away as a decoy, while the real thing made its way off to customers in a car waiting the next block over. Detroit brewers like Zynda, however, had an even harder time making a go of it as of 1927. That year, Canada ended its partial Prohibition, and many Detroit beer makers found it hard to compete once a legal draft at a Windsor saloon was just a boat ride away.
After prohibition ended, and they were legal once again, their name changed to the Zynda Brewing Co. When they brewed Zynda’s Bock, is something I wasn’t able to answer, and although it looks like it’s from the late 1800s, I can’t say for sure.
Beer In Ads #1729: The Falstaff Serenade
Wednesday’s ad is for Falstaff, from 1910. It’s a beautiful ad, showing a woman serenading the Falstaff star on a — is that a mandolin? — while sitting on a crescent moon. It was done by Valentine Sandberg, who was born in Sweden, but came to the U.S. as an infant and worked doing covers for a variety of popular magazine covers out of New York.
