Tuesday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1949, and is one in their “I was curious” series. In adjoining apartments in one of those beautiful brick buildings with ivy-covered walls and planters that don’t really exist in the real world, the residents run into one another and the couple invite down for a glass of Schlitz. I love how dressed up everybody is just relaxing on their patio.
Monday’s ad is for Budweiser, from 1967, and features Johnny Carson’s sidekick Ed McMahon. He’s look relatively normal in the foreground, a button-down man in a grey flannel suit, but the Budweiser suit he’s wearing in the ad behind him? Hiyoooo!
Friday’s ad is from the early 1930s, for Pabst Blue Ribbon, though it references the NRA — not that one, the other one — in this case the National Recovery Administration. The NRA was the agency charged with implementing the National Industrial Recovery Act, passed in June of 1933, as part of the New Deal effort to combat the Great Depression. Since it was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1935, there’s a pretty short window when the ad most likely ran. Still, the illustration is pretty cool, and looks like the later Beer Belongs ads that the industry ran after World War 2.
Thursday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1953, showing a scene of a couple camping. They must have just arrived, because he’s just making the fire and her hair looks perfect. Not to mention that kicky sweater ensemble she’s wearing, that looks like the perfect camping outfit. Given the way she’s holding that can of beer up in the air so triumphantly, I think his plan was to take her into the woods and get her drunk. In that, it appears, he may have succeeded.
Wednesday’s ad is for Watney’s Dairymaid Stout, from what looks to be the 1970s, plus or minus. The first time I ever heard of Watney’s, probably like most Americans, was watching Monty Python, and their reference to “Bleedin’ Watney’s Red Barrel.” One interesting thing from the ad copy. It’s “the perfect mixer with most other beers.” I didn’t realize that was something people looked for in a beer. I also love the line at the bottom, mentioning another one of their stouts. “Watney’s Hammerton Stout: Brewed with Oatmeal & Glucose for Zest.” Yum, glucose. When was that a marketable ingredient?
Tuesday’s ad is for, I think, St. Pauli Girl. The ad’s text, “Die Drei Von St. Pauli,” translates roughly as “Three of the St. Pauli,” at least according to Google Translate. I’m not sure, but it appears to be three different beers from the Bavaria St. Pauli Brauerei. But at the bottom of each label, it also reads Brauerei Abzug, so who knows. I don’t much history of the St. Pauli brand before they introduced the eponymous girl in 1977, though it was 1982 when they started choosing a model each year to represent the brand. More importantly, who the hell are those three character standing in front of each bottle?
Monday’s ad is for the Australian beer Tooheys Oatmeal Stout. It looks to be an older ad, pre-WWII possibly, but I’m not sure. Since it refers to the Oatmeal Stout as building “radiant health,” I suspect that it’s from a time before the age of television. It seems to me that such health claims tend to be in ads from before the 1940s.
Hat tip to Mirella Amato for this one, it’s a fun little ditty, a song about beer entitled I Love You, Beer performed on May 21, 2011 by the Poxy Boggards at the 49th annual Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Irwindale California. Enjoy.
Friday’s ad is for Froedtert Malt, or FroMalt, a Milwaukee maltster. They used to have at least three facilities and at least one closed in 2003, but I don’t know how many are left. This ad looks to be from the 1950s. The ad’s correct, of course. After a long day skiing, you need some malted goodness.
Thursday’s ad is for Schlitz, from 1959. It’s from a series using the slogan “Know the Real Joy of Good Living.” A man holds up a glass of Schlitz, while the woman looks up at in a way that I can characterize as way to longingly. Her hair also looks like there are two doughnuts on her forehead.
