Monday’s ad is for Rheingold Beer, from 1942. With the opening day of the 2014 baseball season taking place for most teams today (not including the boondoggle to Australia and one game yesterday) I thought this week I’d feature ads with a baseball theme. Today’s ad features Leo “The Lip” Durocher, who at this time was the manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Sunday’s ad is for Hamm’s, from sometime between 1983 and 1999, which is when Pabst owned the Hamm’s brand. With the opening of baseball season today (not including the boondoggle to Australia) I thought this week I’d featuring ads with a baseball theme.
Saturday’s ad is for Kirin, from 1939. This is another odd one, with a Japanese woman holding a large bottle of Kirin beer over her shoulder. But her shadow shows a soldier marching behind her, which seems almost eerie in hindsight, knowing that World War 2 was looming and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was only two years away.
Friday’s ad is for Yebisu Beer, from 1930. This was only three years after Charles Lindbergh’s famous transatlantic solo flight, so showing an airplane above the Tokyo skyline was probably pretty cutting edge at the time. I love the stylized perspective, especially the wing.
Thursday’s ad is for Extra Cascade Beer, from 1929. The beer was made by the Kotobukiya Beer Brewery in Yokohama, Japan. Apparently a lager beer of “finest quality,” it’s hard not to admire the generous heads on the four mugs shown in the ad.
Wednesday’s ad is another one for Sakura beer, this one from between 1928-32. This fetching flag-bearer is thrusting a glass of beer to the heavens from her perch above the Earth. I’m not sure why — It may be her confidence and assertive stare — but I want the beer she’s offering.
Tuesday’s ad is for the Sakura beer, from 1924. An elephant is rearing back on his hind legs, holding the world’s biggest beer in his trunk. Below him, hundreds (or more?) cheer.
Monday’s ad is for the Nippon Brewery, from 1912. Showing a couple of Geishas on a train, with a vendor at the station offering them beer from a full basket. Through the window on the other side of the train is a large factory, which is presumably the brewery.
Today’s beer film is really just a slideshow to music, but it’s such a great collection of photographs that it’s worthwhile anyway. The book, MICROBREWERS: 1981-1996: A Photo History, features a wealth of historic photographs of many of the pioneers of the craft beer industry taken by David Bjorkman, who co-founded New Brewer magazine in 1983 with Victoria Thomas and Charlie Papazian, and documented the nascent beer industry from 1981 to 1996 before moving to Mexico. The handmade book includes “over 300 photos of the first microbrewers in the United States” and can be purchased from Blurb. I bought it when it first came out in 2009, and despite its high price tag, it’s an awesome collection of photos. The song, by the way, is the traditional Irish song “Beer, Beer, Beer” performed by The Clancy Brothers.
Sunday’s ad is for Tokio Beer, from 1906. I know some manga today looks like this, but it’s a pretty unattractive ad. The man with the Snidely Whiplash moustache doesn’t look very trustworthy and the fat cherub riding the red cock holding a large bottle of beer … well, what more can you say?
