Tuesday’s ad is for the Budweiser flat-top can from 1964. They’re going for that manly fisherman demographic. I found it interesting given yesterday’s post, Evolution of a Beer Label, just how much importance A-B was placing on its label in 1964. Notice what the ad copy reads. “The story is on every Budweiser label.” But I think the previous question asked by the ad, “[i]s there any real difference in the way beers are brewed,” will have the average beer geek laughing out loud.
For my first Top 10 list of 2010, I’ve decided on a decidedly unreal topic, Fictional Beers. By fictional, I mean beers that were created in literature, film, television or other similar media. I drive my wife nuts whenever we watch a TV show or film, trying to identify the beer on the screen to see if it’s a real brand or one the filmmaker’s made up. At least initially, all of the brands here were conceived and created only in the mind of a writer. You’ve seen them in the hands of your favorite characters on the screen or read about them in the pages of comics or novels. Some proved so popular that they made the jump to real products. So for my 21st Top 10 List, I present my favorite fictional beer brands. Let me know your faves. Here’s List #21:
Top 10 Fictional Beer Brands
| Spud Beer from Saturday Night Live While SNL spoofed many beers over its long television run, being a potato fanatic makes this one my personal favorite. Most people seem to like Schmitts Gay Beer or ColdCock Malt Liquor, but I prefer “the beer that made Boise famous.”  | |
| Olde Frothingslosh from the Pittsburgh radio show “Cordic & Company,” with host Rege Cordic Olde Frothingslosh Pale Stale Ale might have stayed a footnote in radio history, had it not been for Iron City Brewery (then Pittsburgh Brewing) making up actual cans of this beer (with just regular Iron City inside) for collectors. The beer started out out as just another joke on Cordic’s radio show in the 1950s with the beer’s taglines “A whale of an ale for the pale stale male” and “Hi dittom dottom, the foam is on the bottom.” The first cans were done in 1955, but they were revived again in the 1970s, this time featuring plus size go-go dancer Fatima Yechberg (real name: Marsha Phillips) on the label and the popularity of the cans soared even more than in the fifties.  | |
| Dharma Beer from the TV show “Lost” This might be higher if I was still a fan of Lost, but I stopped following the show somewhere in the muddled season three. Still, like Repo Man before it, I love it when everything looks the same, as if it was all made by one entity.  | |
| Heisler Beer from the ISS, featured on countless programs. Heisler Beer is the most famous beer you’ve never heard of. It was created by Independent Studio Services as a prop to be used in television and films. A partial list of TV and films it’s been used in includes American Pie Presents: Band Camp, Beerfest, Bionic Woman, Bones, Burn Notice, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, Desperate Housewives, Dollhouse, Everybody Hates Chris, How I Met Your Mother, The Hulk, Malcom in the Middle, My Name Is Earl, The Pretender, Prison Break, The Rainmaker, Star Trek: Enterprise, Stealing Harvard, Superbad, The Shield, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Training Day, Two and a Half Men, Veronica Mars and Weeds. See Wikipedia for a more complete list.  | |
| Olde Fortran Malt Liquor from “Futurama” Also created by Matt Groening, Futurama had several fake beer brands on the animated series, such as Benderbrau Cold-Fusion Steam Beer, Löbrau Beer, Pabst Blue Robot and St. Pauli Exclusion Principle Girl Beer. But Olde Fortran is the one I recall seeing most often, so that’s why it’s number six.  | |
| Buzz Beer from the “Drew Carey Show” Years before the FDA stuck their nose into caffeine and beer, Drew Carey was working on Buzz Beer in his garage.  | |
| Samuel Jackson from “Chappelle’s Show” I loved Dave Chappelle’s show, and while he had many more poignant and funny moments, as far as beer spoofs go, this one was freaking hilarious.  | |
| Shotz Beer from the TV show “Laverne & Shirley” This one may be lost on the young folks, as this Happy Days spin-off has been off the air since 1983, having run for eight seasons beginning in 1976. But all the leads worked at a brewery, Shotz in Milwaukee, so it sticks with me in my memory, at least, and perhaps those who are old curmudgeons like me, too. In retrospect, it’s surprising no brewery stepped up and made a Shotz Beer.  | |
| Elsinore Beer from the film “Strange Brew” Given that Strange Brew is the greatest beer movie ever made (though I still hesitate to actually call it a “good” movie), it’s only natural that Elsinore Beer — no longer with rats or drugs in each bottle — should be one of the top fake beers, too.  | |
| Duff Beer from the TV show “The Simpsons” How could it be otherwise? No brand so thoroughly explored all that’s repugnant in big beer advertising and marketing as Duff Beer has done for twenty years.  |
It was, as always, really difficult to keep the list to ten, and to put together this list I also compiled a more complete list of Fictional Beer Brands, listing as many as I could remember or research. Take a look and see if there’s any you can think of that I missed. Here’s a few more that nearly made the list:
Butterbeer, from the Harry Potter series, Flager Lager, from “Magnum P.I.,” Newton & Ridley from England’s “Coronation Street” (I have friends who are fanatical about the show), Pawtucket Patriot Ale, from “Family Guy,” Rocketfuel Malt Liquor, from “News Radio,” Romulan Ale, from “Star Trek,” Tenku Beer, from “Kill Bill,” and last, but not least, the generic Beer (like every other product in) the film “Repo Man.”
Let me know your favorites, and if you see any that you think should have made the list, please post a comment.
Also, if you have any ideas for future Top 10 lists you’d like to see, drop me a line.
Though it’s been available on Virgin America (which since 2017 is owned by Alaskan Airlines) for a little while now, 21st Amendment Brewery formally announced yesterday that their canned IPAwas being served on Virgin flights in the U.S. From the press release:
Great craft beer on planes is finally reaching the blue skies, as the 21st Amendment Brewery is set to launch their Brew Free! or Die IPA in cans aboard Virgin America Airlines. Starting now Virgin America will serve complimentary Brew Free! or Die IPA in First Class and Main Cabin Select and the beer will be available for purchase in the Main Cabin for $7.
While not the first canned craft beer on an airline, this is terrific news both for 21st Amendment and also beer loving passengers. It certainly makes me want to choose to fly Virgin wherever possible.
21st Amendment co-owners Shaun O’Sullivan and Nico Freccia
This morning, my son Porter and I finally got around to building the Kids Lab science project that he got for his birthday back in September. It was a Soda Can Robug, but since we’re a soda-free household, we used a beer can instead.
Porter showing off his Beer Can Robug, made with Ukiah Pilsner.
Depending on your point of view, this is either tragic or funny. It happened back in June, but one of the passersby, Scott Bradley, shot a video which he recently uploaded to YouTube, and sent me a tweet. He apparently shot the video on June 17, 2009 as he was driving cross country from New Jersey to California. I guess to him it was tragic as he laments that he “was unable to put any beer in my car because my car was full to the brim with all of my stuff that I was moving.” The incident took place near Dayton, Ohio and here’s the account from the Dayton Daily News, which also includes several photos.
Several people sent me a link to ABIB‘s latest ad campaign for Bud Light Lime in a can. You can watch the online commercial below.
I’m not quite sure what to make of it. I’m generally a fan of the double entendre and the wit it often employs, but this Bud Light Lime ad seems less witty and more coarse, low-brow and unsophisticated. Klassy with a “K.” And I say that not because of its naked and unsubtle allusions to sex or because — gasp — children might see it. I’m not personally offended in any way. But regardless of what I think about Bud Light Lime, it hardly shows beer in a positive light. It may be the least respectful ad since Miller’s infamous mud wrestling ad or Bud’s recently flatulent horse.
Created by the ad agency DDB Chicago, so far the reaction has been mixed, yet both sides seem to prove my point that this is not the way to portray beer if we want anyone to take it seriously. (And before anyone chimes in with “but it’s just Bud Light,” like all advertising it accumulates to the overall perception of beer by society at large, so I believe it does matter.) On one hand, Advertising Age says In Juvenile Bud Light Lime Spot, This Butt’s for You, finding it too tasteless to be effective. They conclude:
Crude ads are, of course, nothing new in the category that brought the world the “Swedish Bikini Team,” but they’ve been a bit scarce since Miller Brewing Co.’s bottom-scraping use of bikini-clad mudwrestlers in a 2003 “tastes great, less filling” brawl.
That ad sparked wide recriminations about how lowest-common-denominator advertising turns the product into a commodity indistinguishable by any measure other than whose proprietor has lower standards. For a while after, advertisers toned it down, taking a back seat to fast-food chains and even domain registrars when it came to over-the-top ads.
But perhaps our long national nightmare of relatively tasteful beer ads is coming to an end at last.
But BrandFreak’s Kenneth Hein felt that it is the best thing Bud Light’s done in a while,” completely disagreeing with Advertising Age.
The problem with Bud Light and beer advertising in general is that brands are afraid to have fun. Sure, thinly veiled anal-sex jokes appeal to “the lowest common denominator,” but who cares? We’re talking about beer. A-B and its agencies need to have a couple and loosen up even more, because its recent run of ads have been a buzzkill.
But here’s where he proves my point. He likes the ad precisely because it’s tasteless as he writes “who cares? We’re talking about beer.” And that’s the rub. It perpetuates the perception that beer is just beer, nothing more. And that’s the belief a vast majority of people hold, which I think is almost entirely the fault of of ads like this one. Only the breweries that can afford to advertise on television nationally get their message to consumers. And for decades, that message has appealed to a lowest-common denominator ethos that’s painted beer as an interchangeable commodity. Only the brand is important, because for most of those beer companies, what’s inside is virtually the same. So you sell other ideas, and end up with a populace that perceives all beer as being the same. And that overall perception is hardly flattering. So most people tend to believe that beer is all the same; it’s just that swill that frat boys drink at tailgate parties or while binge-drinking their way through college.
And I hardly think this ad will change that. What do you think about it?
First there was Nude Beer (in its many incarnations), then Wanker, Skinny Blonde Ale and now comes the latest beer to play to the basest instincts of the male beer drinker: lingerie canned beer with fishnet stockings.
At least that was my original thought. The Fishnet Cans have been blogged and re-blogged all over that series of tubes known as the internet. But, as it turns out, they are just one of a pretty big series of can designs by Russian artist/illustrator Ramm ND. It’s not necessarily his or her fault that so many chose to highlight the one prurient themed can and ignored the more poignant works. Human nature is what it is. Take a closer look at the Fishnet Cans and you’ll begin to see new details that defy it being simply to titillate. Then take a look at his entire oeuvre of cans. Some are beer and some are soda, but they’re all more interesting than I would have guessed from just seeing the one in fishnets.
In fact, going through Ramm’s entire portfolio is eye-opening. And I think he’s making some larger points. These aren’t just can designs, they’re works of art using cans as the medium.
Ramm also has another portfolio on Coroflot.
Today’s work of art is by Rob Sheridan, who is the art director for the band Nine Inch Nails. But in his spare time, Sheridan maintains a wonderfully weird sketchblog. That’s where this week’s artwork, Cereal Mascot Reunion comes from, a digital work featuring a number of cereal box characters having a reunion, and drinking a few Budweiser cans in the process.
Here’s how Sheridan describes the work:
For some reason this image has been swimming around in my head for a few years now, and finally – after chipping away at it bit by bit over the last couple months – I’ve brought it to life as a large, absurdly detailed print. It’s kind of about the strange, uncomfortable feeling of reuniting with old friends only to find that the magic just isn’t there anymore – and in turn, about the melancholy “nothing will ever be as good as it used to be” type of nostalgia, of which I am increasingly fond. And of course, a tribute to the late, great, wood-paneled, shag-carpeted 1970’s rec room.
If you want to see how he created the work, there’s an incredible detailed step-by-step account called Anatomy of a Digital Painting.
And here’s what he has to say about himself at the Sketchblog’s ABout Me pge:
My name is Rob. I’m 29 years old, I live in Los Angeles, and I’m a professional art director. While I work mostly with graphic design and video, illustration has always been my favorite means of expression. I grew up an only child of a single mother, so my sketchbook and my imagination were often my best childhood friends. My brain was raised on a hearty diet of comic books, toy robots, Saturday morning cartoons, Star Wars, and Nintendo. And not a whole lot has changed since then, really, except that my sketchbook has gone digital.
I originally made this SketchBlog as an exercise in creative discipline – an attempt to get myself to draw more and play around with images and ideas that wouldn’t fit in my professional work. A playground for the side of my brain that never really grew up, I suppose. It’s proved to be a tremendous motivational tool, and I’m really pleased with some of the art that’s come out of it so far.
In addition to his Wikipedia page, Rob Sheridan also has an online portfolio, the sketchblog and a flickr gallery of his illustrations.
Here’s a fun little item from Japan, albeit a little on the strange side. If you have a Pavlovian response to the sound of a beer can opening, you’re going to love this. It’s called “Mugen Beer,” which means “infinite beer,” presumably because you can open the can over and over again. Pop the cap and you’ll hear one of several sounds like the classic opening crack, pouring, bubbles, drinking sounds and even a “secret sound.”
You can get it in four different color schemes, including yellow, black, grey, white (or red and blue if you prefer a soda can).
You can order your very own online at the Japan Trend Shop, though it is a little pricey at $23 (plus $15 shipping). But can really put a price on that sound?
There’s a tempest in a teapot brewing at New Trier Township High School, located a little over 22 miles north of Chicago along Lake Michigan. In the newly published senior yearbook for the class of 2009, apparently somebody slipped in an unauthorized photo of two girls hugging. But look closer and you can just barely see — gasp — a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon held behind the back of one of the girls.
Oh, the humanity. You’d think they just witnessed a murder to see the hue and cry this “incident” has caused. The local news is painting the story as if a serious crime had been committed. Talk about overreacting. Sheesh. There are even discussions in the press about the contrast in photo quality between the offending snapshot and other more professional looking photos found elsewhere in the yearbook. Geez, it’s the smoking photo, the Zapruder picture. “School spokeswoman Laura Blair told the Chicago Tribune that the photo was not in the yearbook when the adviser cleared it for publication, indicating someone sneaked it in afterwards. Blair says ‘it’s clearly defiant and subversive and intentional.'” Really, it’s clearly intentional? I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to imagine focusing on the girls’ faces and not even noticing the can at all.
From an article on the website of Chicago NBC affiliate:
“Clearly, the content of the picture and its inclusion in the yearbook are contrary to our principles and values as a school community. Administrators are investigating how and why the inappropriate picture was included, and we will take appropriate disciplinary action when we find the responsible individuals,” said Supt. Lina Yonke of the New Trier Township High School District. Possible consequences for the students involved could range from a school suspension to charges of underage possession of alcohol.
“Contrary to our principles and values as a school community,” what does that even mean? If teenagers drink — and obviously they do — isn’t that a part of the true values of the school community? In another story, the superintendent told a reporter it essentially ruined the whole yearbook. Really? It’s as if the school officials just discovered that the little angels in their charge might not be exactly as obedient and subservient as they believed, I guess preferring the fantasy that the kids in their school never did anything they weren’t supposed to do. For them, I have tell them that teenagers do drink, sorry to burst your bubble. It’s hardly newsworthy.
At least one Chicago Tribune columnist was able to keep it in perspective. Eric Zorn wrote a short piece, entitled Memo to New Trier High School administrators: Chill, concluding, “I have an idea: How about a wag of the finger and a reproachful shake of the head? They deserve it and so, actually, do you.”
But this story is all over the internet, especially in the local area. It must have been a very slow news day. But this is also a prime example of how the media overplays covering alcohol in society. A non-story is turned into a media circus. There was another photo also “sneaked” into the yearbook of a student shooting the finger, but that barely got a mention in only a fraction of the total stories on this incident.
View more news videos at: http://www.nbcchicago.com/video.