Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Brookston Beer Quiz #4

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Here is quiz number four. This one is without images, because there were problems last time (see below). For this quiz, there is a beer slogan that is or was used for a particular beer or brewery. See how many you can get right. Good luck. Let me know how you did.

If you missed any previous quizzes, they can all be found on the beer quiz page.

NOTE: A number of people in the last quiz told me they couldn’t see the images. If you were one of those people, please send me the name of the browser you were using so I can try to see what’s going wrong. I tested it using Firefox and Safari and it worked fine. Perhaps it’s Microsoft Explorer or other browsers that is the problem?

Beer In Ads #20: Biere Chatelaine

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Tuesday’s ad is from France, most likely in the first few decades of the 20th century. Despite the fact that you can see there’s a signature on the poster, no source I can find identifies who the artist is. Similarly, I don’t know what brewery the poster is advertising for. The poster reminds me a bit of the old Coppertone ad where the dog is trying to pull off the little girl’s bathing suit. But in this case the damn dog is pulling on the waitress’ dress and spilling the beer! Bad dog!

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Beer In Ads #19: Budweiser, I See You Have Excellent Taste

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Monday’s ad is from 1937 and is again for Budweiser. The gypsy fortune teller must have seemed very exotic in the late 1930s. But I love the assertion that by buying Budweiser you’re complimenting “your own excellent taste.” And you, and three generations before you, have done so not because you liked the taste, not because you were thirsty, not even because you enjoyed beer, but for a more grand reason. You bought Bud “in the interest of good fellowship, contentment and good living.”

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The inset box is signed by Adolphus Busch III, who’d taken over A-B from August A. Busch Sr. just a few years before, in 1934. It also contains some interesting statements. Obviously, the nation was still smarting from the effects of the Great Depression. Busch is insuring customers that buying Budweiser is helping American business; railroads, retailers and even farmers. He concludes with “whenever you drink Budweiser you are helping someone.” I imagine that’s true, but it’s still a bit odd that his focus is on that help going to someone other than A-B itself. I guess he didn’t want to come off like he was being self-serving.

The other thing I’m curious about is he mentions that A-B has “bought millions of dollars worth of barley and hops from American farmers.” Hops, I understand, to a point, at least. Today A-B owns hop farms in Idaho, but also in the Hallertau region of Bavaria, Germany. Obviously, the ad doesn’t claim they buy ALL their hops and barley from U.S. farmers, and they don’t even mention where the rice comes from. But did A-B buy more hops domestically in the past? Also, it’s my understanding that the vast majority of barley used by American breweries comes from Canada, though there is a small percentage grown in the U.S. for brewing. Has that shifted in the last 70+ years since this ad ran? Did brewers used to get more of their grain here in the States? Anybody know? You rarely see local grain touted as a point of pride in advertising, the only recent exception I can think of being Sierra Nevada’s Estate Brewers Harvest Ale. But with all the recent attention paid to buying locally and locavores, that has to be one of beer’s dirty little secrets: that most brewing grains come from outside the U.S., much less from local farmers.

Beer In Ads #18: Leonetto Cappiello’s Bieres de La Fauvette

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Friday’s ad is French, and most likely was created at the beginning 20th century. It was painted by Leonetto Cappiello, an Italian illustrator considered to be the father of modern advertising.

From one biography:

Cappiello was self-taught, began as a caricaturist and escalated to the early 20th century’s most acclaimed European artist. Cleverly linking products with vivid, memorable images, he produced 1,000 imaginative posters for beverages, ballet, literature, plays, travel and music halls in four decades. Leading the Art Deco movement, Cappiello’s techniques are still vital to modern advertising.

I don’t know what brewery this was done for, but essentially it translates as “Beer of the Warbler.”

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Beer In Ads #17: Budweiser, The Hostess

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Thursday’s ad is from 1892 and is for Budweiser. I assume what she’s wearing was fashionable in the day, but I’d say that dress is a little too busy, especially against that garish background. There’s a small title at the bottom that reads “The Hostess,” perhaps suggesting this was part of a series? It’s hard to see in this size, but if you click through to see it full-sized, you can see she’s wearing a necklace of the Anheuser-Busch “A” and eagle logo. And take a look at the odd-looking crown and the red stripe below it. I’m no breweriana expert, but that looks very different to me, too.

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Beer In Ads #16: Pabst, What’ll You Have?

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Wednesday’s ad is a Christmas ad — because today is Old Christmas Day, when “on the 12th day after Christmas, Christians celebrate the visit of the Magi, the first Gentile recognition of Christ.” It’s also known as Epiphany, Three Kings Day and Twelfth Day. If I had to guess, I’d say this ad was from the mid-to-late fifties. The tagline “What’ll You Have?” was used by Pabst for a number of years and it appears it a number of their ads from that time period. Happy Christmas.

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Beer In Ads #15: Bass, The Drink Of The Empire

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Tuesday’s ad is another oldie, based on the label, at least. I don’t know much about it either, but I love the association Bass is trying to make. While it’s obvious that they’re trying to evoke emotions of pride, it still comes off a little colonial and warlike. Of course, that may be because I live in a former colony. But with the tag line, “The Drink of the Empire,” I think I’m safe in saying the ad is somewhat imperial in its tone.

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Beer In Ads #14: Call For A Valley Brew

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Monday’s ad is one I have a reproduction of hanging in my office, a gift from my friend Steve Altimari, who is the brewmaster at Valley Brewing in Stockton, Calif. Valley Brewing sells the posters and uses the image in some of the promotional materials, but it’s 50s advertisement from the old El Dorado Brewery, a brewery that had been in Stockton from 1855 until it closed for good in 1955. You gotta love old cheesecake.

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Beer In Ads #13: Schlitz Here’s One I Can Understand

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It’s the first day of the new year, of course, and this year I’ll be highlighting beer ads every week day — Monday through Friday — instead of just once a week on Thursdays. I just have too many already collected that I think are wonderful and merit sharing, so I decided to make 2010 the year of the beer ad here at the Brookston Beer Bulletin. Some will be old, some from mid-century (the 50s, 60 and 70s) and other will be more contemporary. The only unifying theme is that I think they’re artistic, more clever than the usual beer ad or have something else going for them. Feel free to suggest an ad you like and, if I agree, I’ll put it in the queue.

The year’s first ad, from Schlitz, was published in 1952. I don’t know who the artist was, but it looks like many other Schlitz ads from the same period, so it may have been a house illustrator. But it seemed appropriate for today because it’s set in an art museum, where I believe all of these ads belong.

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Here’s One I Can Understand

This man may not be an art expert, but he knows fine beer when he tastes it. There are millions of people like him … people who like the taste of Schlitz so much that no other beer is in the picture for them.