Wednesday’s ad is also for Budweiser, from 1908. In the first two decades of the last century — the run up to prohibition — there was a lot going on in the beer world. It was period of vast consolidation. Increasingly, breweries finally started worrying that prohibition could really become a reality and began doing pro-beer ads. This one is partly hit-you-over-the-head obvious, and also somewhat subtle. Obviously, the main thrust of the ad copy is that Anheuser-Busch in 1908 employed 6,000 at just one “plant.” That sure sounds like a lot for a single brewery. They go on to say there are 750,000 people employed by all of America’s breweries and not less than 4 million “women and children” who are “directly dependent upon their pay envelopes,” with an additional 400,000 employed on farms that produce the crops necessary to make beer. Perhaps more importantly, all of those employees who work in the beer industry “love their homes,” plus “they are good, honest citizens, temperate, patriotic and true.”

On the more subtle side, the ad is designed to look like it’s burting out of a regular page in the newspaper, in this case the Washington Post. BUt look closer at the headlines. Here are a few of them: “Beer on the Mayflower,” “The Drink of the Great,” “World’s Decisive Battles Won By Beer Drinkers,” “The Grain of the Gods,” “Food Value of Malt Brews,” and “The Temperance Value of Beer.” Great stuff.

Tuesday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1949. This one is part of their long-running “there’s nothing like it …” series. But the story that the illustration tells is a bit ambiguous. A couple is relaxing by the fire, their eyes fixed on another woman, just coming in from the ski slopes. But look closely. There are exactly three, not two, full glasses of beer. She was expected. Is this a seduction scene? Or is it merely my overactive imagination? Personally, I think the answer is all in the eyes. What do you read into their expressions?

Wednesday’s ad is from 1948, for Budweiser, and uses the seemingly inscrutable slogan “Ice Gave All 48 States a Seashore …” as part of their “Great Contributions to Good Taste” series. The idea is that thanks to ice, along with refrigeration and fast transportation, seafood can be sold anywhere in America. And then it can be paired with Budweiser, since “It lives with good taste everywhere,” whatever that means.

Monday’s ad is for Budweiser and I suspect it’s from the late 1960s or 70s, when the big breweries seemed to finally discover that not everybody was white. They’re still using the “Where There’s Bud … There’s Life” campaign. Also, check out the clasp on the back of the jeans worn by the man on the left. Does anybody remember jeans like that? I’m not exactly a fashion maven, but I don’t remember that particular trend. Do you?

Thursday’s ad is from Budweiser’s long-running “Where There’s Life” series. Showing a bashful woman hiding her face, barely, with a fan, as her beau pours her a glass of Budweiser.

Thursday’s ad is also for Budweiser, this one from just after Prohibition ended in 1933. Expressing the celebratory mood that prohibition was finally over, but that “Something More Than Beer Is Back,” hopefully not meaning just polo. No, what they’re trying to get across is that with beer’s return, it was now “For those with a Flair for Good Living.” But I guess that means people who play polo. Hmm.

Wednesday’s ad is for Budweiser, from around the 1950s, part of their long-running “There’s nothing like it … absolutely nothing” campaign. The setting for this one is a couple making popcorn in their fireplace, fully dressed. I love the man’s smiling-with-a-pipe expression.

Thursday’s ad is for Bud Light from 1988, during the Spuds McKenzie days. I never a big fan of Spuds, a booze hound, womanizing anthropomorphized pup. He debuted during the 1997 Super Bowl, a couple of years after Pete’s Wicked Ale started out with their dog Millie on their label. He was also a Bull Terrier, like Spuds McKenzie. To make maters worse, even though Pete’s use of his own dog on the label preceded Bud Light using a similar dog, they threatened legal action and, as they say, the big dog always wins. It’s never a fair fight. Pete changed their label and Spuds went on to become an advertising legend. After all, “he’s the guru of good times.”

Tuesday’s ad is for Budweiser from presumably the late 1800s. The well-dressed woman holding a beer surrounded by flowers, or a garden, or something like that was a staple of beer advertising in that era. That’s some red dress.

Monday’s ad is from a different time, 1940 to be exact. This Budweiser ad will have feminists tearing their hair out. The ad features a mock essay entitled Portrait of a Happy Husband, written by none other than A Smart Wife. The happy husband being portrayed is still in his suit (minus the jacket) but is wearing slippers, smoking his pipe while reading the paper, and with a beer on the table next to him for when he becomes parched. Some of her revelations are that his favorite appliance is the “icebox,” that he “prowls” for snacks and is happiest, not with her, but with friends, and won’t you please “drop by this evening” and save me from this hellish nightmare. I’ll have the Budweiser.