Peter Rowe, the man behind the television show Dirty Jobs, has a new three-part series that debuts tonight: How Booze Built America. I suspect they’ll be playing fast and loose with much of beer’s history, but it should be at least an entertaining show. Check out the first episode on the Discovery channel. Check your local listings for times. Below is a teaser to give you a flavor of the show.
Beer In Ads #696: More Flavor, Less Filling, More Fun!
Tuesday’s ad is from perhaps the 1950s, for the Indiana brewery Drewerys. I’m assuming this is before Miller introduced their Lite beer and the slogan “tastes great, less filling.” Drewerys is using the somewhat similar “more flavor, less filling, more fun!” How about the faces the model is making to express each idea. Hilarious, that’s Big D.
Beer In Ads #695: Heute Bock
Monday’s ad is from 1890, and is for a German, or at least German-speaking, country. The text, “Heute Bock,” translates as “today bock.” I’ve no idea if the ad, undoubtedly a poster of some kind, is for any particular brewery. It looks hand-colored. My guess is it was from a book of some sort. At the top is §11, which here in the states that symbol § is generally used in legal writing for “section” but in Europe it means paragraph in the same way we use the pilcrow sign ¶. So this was likely the cover or title page for Paragraph 11 of something. Anybody got a better explanation, or know what it’s from?
Beer In Ads #694: Boy Did Those Grilled Steaks Used To Taste Swell
Friday’s ad is another pro-beer ad by the United Brewers Industrial Foundation, this one from 1944, when we were fully engage in World War II. The UBIF did a series during the war that reminded people back home what the soldiers fighting on their behalf were missing, and also reminded people what they were fighting for, which in this case was the ability to have a backyard barbecue with steak and beer. I love the text, especially toward the end:
Wholesome and satisfying. how good it is … as a beverage of moderation after a hard day’s work … with good friends … with a home-cooked meal.
A glass of beer or ale — not of crucial importance surely … yet it is little things like this that help mean home to all of us, that do so much to build morale — ours and his.
Beer In Ads #693: The Coors Light Twins
Today is the 41st birthdays of Diane & Elaine Klimaszewski, better known as the “Coors Light Twins,” so I thought today was the day to feature a few of their ads. The first Coors Light ad is from 2003 and uses a football theme.
These last two are from the year before, 2002. The first uses the simple tagline “Here’s to the Twins.”
And the second uses the appropriate “Here’s to the Twins. Again,” though I think it’s the same photo from the first ad.
Beer In Ads #692: 5 Million Pounds Of Farm Products
Wednesday’s ad is from 1939, it’s by the United Brewers Industrial Foundation, promoting the brewing industry six years after the end of prohibition. According to the ad, brewers had bought five million pounds of farm products in those half-dozen years. Barley, wheat, rice and corn, from tree million acres of American farm lands. It’s also one of the earliest instances I’ve seen of the tagline they used throughout the 40s and 50s: “Beer … a Beverage of Moderation.”
Beer In Ads #691: Leupin’s Beer Glasses
Tuesday’s ad is another by famed Swiss illustrator Herbert Leupin. Like many of his others, I’m not sure what beer this ad is for or when it was created, though he worked mainly beginning in the late 1930s and then took up paintings around 1970. So we can safely say it was between those dates. The two glasses look like they could be separate pieces, since the blue backgrounds look just a hair different shades. But boy oh boy, Leupin sure could draw beer that looks good enough to drink.
Beer In Ads #690: Anchor Porter
It’s a Porter sort of day — being my son Porter’s birthday — so Monday’s ad is for Anchor Porter. It’s a simple, but effective, ad and it makes me thirsty just looking at it. Yum.
Beer In Ads #689: Budweiser Camouflaged Sunbathers
Friday’s ad is for Budweiser, another fairly recent ad, this one from 1984. Despite its somewhat sexist theme, I confess I have fond memories of this ad from when I was a young adult. It’s funny seeing the portable CD player and compact discs sitting in the sun. That was fairly new technology at the time. I vividly remember that a few years before this ad, when I was working as a music buyer for a chain of record stores, CBS Records gave us a demonstration of the new compact disc they were about to debut. I also recall being blown away by how clear and hiss-free the sound was.
Beer In Ads #688: You Know She’s Not A Natural Blonde
Thursday’s ad is for Molson, a fairly recent ad, from 2004. The ad is extolling the virtues of Molson’s “Twin Label Technology,” which as far as I can tell means you can turn the bottle around and there’s a second label with a funny saying on it. With labels like “It’s Over,” “I’m Not Wearing Any Underwear” and “Nice Mullet,” it’s clever but isn’t reason enough to buy the beer inside. It seems like mainstream beer companies spend far more resources on their labels, advertising and marketing than the beer itself.
