Wednesday’s ad is a Ballantine Ale ad from 1947. The ad is a fun little lesson on language, how the word “muff” can have different meanings. It ends on a nice twist, how the word “Ballantine Ale always means: ‘The Perfect Glass!'”
Beer In Ads #376: Trading Beads For Ballantine
Tuesday’s ad is also Ballantine Ale, I think it’s going to be a Ballantine week. Today is also the anniversary of Peter Minuit buying the island of Manhattan in 1626 for the equivalent of around $24 (or more like $72 in today’s money) worth of “cloth, beads, hatchets, and other odds and ends.” At the time, the good were worth around 60 Dutch guilders, or about 1-1/2 lbs. of silver. Check out the Straight Dope for the … well, the straight dope. The ad depicts the scene with the humorous tagline “Early American Bargain.”
Beer In Ads #375: Ballantine Soup
Monday’s ad is a 1957 ad for Ballantine Ale. I love the colorful late fifties dinner party, with lots of Ballantine Ale, but just soup for the guests to eat.
Guinness Ad #69: Life Is Brighter After Guinness
Our 69th Guinness ad is a fairly simple one, showing a half-empty pint of Guinness and the slogan “Life Is Brighter After Guinness” in large letters followed by the more familiar “Guinness is Good For You” in smaller print below that.
Beer In Ads #374: Brasserie De Sochaux
Friday’s ad is for a French brewery, Brasserie De Sochaux, which closed in 1979. It looks late 19th century, but who knows. I’m not seeing the old gray-haired dude in the military (or bellhop?) uniform as making me want to drink their beer. Plus, it just seems too busy.
Beer In Ads #373: The Prince of Pilsen
Thursday’s ad may in fact not actually be an ad. It could just as easily be sheet music or the Playbill from a show. But the “Prince of Pilsen” sounds like a great title for a musical. I wonder why the woman on the left is dressed like the United States?
Beer In Art #127: Carlos Morel’s Duel In The Taproom
This week’s work of art is by an artist from Argentina, Carlos Morel. I saw the original in Buenos Aires at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes. The painting is known as Payada en Una Pulperia or Duel in the Taproom and was created in 1840.
The duel depicted in the painting is of the musical variety, with two guitar players squaring off against one another to the general merriment of all the people drinking in the taproom.
Morel is considered to be Argentina’s first great painter. He was born in Buenos Airies in 1813 and lived until 1894, painting a great number of watercolors and oil paintings throughout his career. Here’s a translated biography
Guinness Ad #68: Guinness — Him Strong
Our 68th Guinness ad is an another odd one, the second from a time when sensitivities toward Native Americans weren’t particularly high. Using for a second time the cringeworthy tagline “— Him Strong,” this one shows not the iconic Toucan but a smiling group of Native Americans sitting in a canoe being held up by, presumably, the chief, who has a bottle of Guinness tucked into his pouch.
And here’s a second ad of the same scene, but from a different angle.
Beer In Ads #369: Quilmes Le Mejor Cerveza
Friday’s ad is the last for Quilmes, from 1968, and it certainly looks like quite a party. Love the hairstyles.
Beer In Ads #368: Quilmes’ Parchment
Thursday’s ad is for Quilmes Cristal, and is on some kind of parchment, or at least paper made to look that way. I don’t actually know how old it is, but it looks old, or perhaps again it was made to look that way.
