Tuesday’s ad is for the Exposition Bruxelles Kermesse, from 1897. From the late 1800s until the 1980s, poster art really came into its own, and in Europe a lot of really cool posters, many of them for breweries, were produced. I’ve been posting vintage European posters all last year and will continue to do so in 2020. This poster was created for the Exposition Bruxelles Kermesse “in three colors,” whatever that means, although essentially it was a World’s Fair held in Brussels that year, and they apparently drank quite a lot of beer. “At the 1897 Brussels World Fair, quite a lot of gueuze-lambic was drunk at the brewery stands (4,405 litres), although that was still peanuts compared to the consumption of ordinary lambic (12,417 litres) and faro (49,516 litres); total beer turnover was 134,241 litres including bock beer, Münchener and Bavarian beer.” This poster was created by Belgian artist Gustave Flasschoen.
