Friday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1940. This just prior to World War 2 ad features English writer Samuel Johnson and his position on the importance of friendships.
Beer In Ads #2818: Gangway, Please … We’ve Got A War To Win
Thursday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1943. This World War 2 ad features the animals marching down a hill, maybe to the slaughter, since it’s their meat that is the subject here. Even during the war, Americans are very well nourished, apparently in part due to Anheuser-Busch’s yeast being used to fortify animal feed. Hmm, seems like a bit of a stretch, but it is making me hungry.
Beer In Ads #2817: Not An A Card In Ye Group
Wednesday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1944. This World War 2 ad features a group of pilgrims walking through a snow-filled forest with the headline “Not an A Card in Ye Group,” which is a reference to rationing during the war. If you had an “A Card” you were permitted 3-4 gallons of gas per week, whereas a “B card” got you 8 and a “C card” got even more, but was reserved for doctors, mail carrier, railroad workers, ministers, etc. There were also “T cards” for trucks and buses and “X cards” for VIPs. It was primarily to save rubber, which was in short supply, not gas.
Beer In Ads #2816: Help Your Community Drives
Tuesday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1944. This World War 2 ad features a Colonial American scene with “Ye Olde Melting Pot” on a street corner. I doubt that’s what actually happened, but I know there were scrap metal drives during World War 2. I have a newspaper clipping when my mother was a little girl when she was made a general in the “tin can army” for collecting a lot of metal (primarily because my grandfather’s job gave him access to it). What it has to do with beer is less clear, except that apparently the brewery also gave to the war effort.
Beer In Ads #2815: It’s Pick-A-Pair Time
Monday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1964. Taking a break from the World War 2 theme, this ad features an election theme, with everyone in favor of cheaper beer, but Anheuser-Busch recommending you “vote twice for Budweiser.”
Beer In Ads #2814: Pinch-Hitting For Norway
Sunday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1942. This ad features the curious story of because of World War 2 imported fish oil from Norway — a good source of Vitamin D — was impossible to obtain, but thankfully Budweiser came to the rescue and offered Vitamin D from another source, their yeast.
Beer In Ads #2813: B Vitamins Give You A Full Day’s Work
Saturday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1943. This ad features a long line of soldiers and workman forming a ring around a giant clock, with the headline “Be sure all the essential B Vitamins give You a full day’s work.”
Beer In Ads #2812: Starch Helps Make Munitions
Friday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1942. This ad features another wartime history lesson on how much research Budweiser has done into barley and their “Corn Products Division.” They also list eight other by-products that their research has led to.
Beer In Ads #2811: You Know The Minuteman …
Thursday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1944. This ad features a history lesson on how much work was done by the “missus” of the average minuteman, with the obvious analogy to wives back home during World War II with so many husbands in the military overseas fighting the war. She does not look very happy. I think she needs a beer.
Beer In Ads #2810: Genesee In The Jungle
Wednesday’s ad is for Genesee Beer, which was founded in Rochester, New York, originally along the Genesee River, but in 1878 they moved up into Rochester proper. Their Genesee Cream Ale, in the simple green can, was one of our go-to beers when I was in high school. Since 2009, the brewery has been part of North American Breweries. This ad, from the 1970s, is a poster done in the style of French post-impressionist painter Henri Rousseau, specifically his many naïve or primitive paintings set in the jungle.
