After a week on hiatus during the Craft Brewers Conference, Monday’s ad is a Ballantine ad from 1950, and features a snowy scene near the north pole. Three stages of the aurora borealis add the Ballantine rings in glorious shimmering color while an Eskimo looks on, making Ballantine’s three fingers and the “okay” sign with his hand — which signifies “three rings.”
Our 61st Guinness ad shows the iconic toucan with two pints of Guinness and the following poetry:
If he can say as you can
Guinness is good for you
How grand to be a Toucan
Just think what Toucan do
They used that punny language to good effect for many years, and in fact that was why the toucan became one of the most used animals in their advertising.
Earlier today the 2011 Craft Brewers Conference began with the morning program, which ended with a keynote address by Fritz Maytag and Ken Grossman. It was more of a casual talk or reminiscence, with Maytag and Grossman talking about their early days, with both the challenges and joys of those times when their were trying to get their respective breweries off the ground. They sat opposite one another on comfy chairs and talked for just over 30 minutes finishing with a toast using the collaboration imperial stout they did together last year, Fritz & Ken’s Ale.
It was a highly entertaining talk and even quite funny in places. I’d forgotten my Flip camera, but I did manage to record the audio of the talk. The keynote is introduced by Tom McCormick, executive director of the California Small Brewers Association, and then it’s Ken and Fritz for thirty plus minutes. Enjoy.
In June of 1933, just as Prohibition was in its death throes, that month’s issue of Popular Science magazine ran a two-page spread entitled Beer Making Is Marvel Of Industrial Chemistry, illustrated by Benjamin Goodwin Seielstad. It’s great fun to see it all laid out the way it’s done here. It seems like they were laying the groundwork for the return of brewing in America.
There’s not a great deal of text accompanying the chart, but here it is in its entirety, from page two of the beer making chart:
With the removal of national restrictions against the manufacture and sale of beer, American brewers are again in action. Their operations represent one of the most extensive applications of modern industrial chemistry. More than 2,000,000,000 pounds of malt, 650,000,000 pounds of corn and corn products, and 41,000,000 pounds of hops are a part of the vast consignment of raw materials that experts will turn each year into beer. On these pages, our artist shows how the transformation is accomplished in one big, and now active, American brewery.
Beer is the fermented product of malted or sprouted grain, usually barley. Its manufacture requires the conversion of the grain’s starch into fermentable sugar, and the transformation of this sugar, by fermentation, into alcohol and carbon dioxide gas. During the process, the beer is given its characteristic bitter flavor by the addition of hops, the yellowish-green cones or catkins of the hop vine.
Malt, the principal raw material, has previously been produced by steeping, sprouting, and drying barley. Germination develops an important enzyme or digestive fluid called diastase, capable of turning the malt’s starch into sugar. Since this task does not exhaust the enzyme’s power, additional starch in the form of corn or rice is often added at the start of the brewing operation. Subsequent steps from the mash to the final product are explained in the drawings. The color of the finished beer depends upon the raw materials; natural malt yields a pale beer, while caramelized, or heat-treated, malt gives a dark beer.
Our 60th Guinness ad shows the iconic toucan riding a dart on its way to the dartboard, all the while holding two pints of Guinness on its beak. The slogan isn’t one of the regular ones, but is specific to the ad itself: “Aim For A Guinness.”
Friday’s ad is another Ballantine ad from, I’m guessing here, the late 50s or early 60s. I love the suggestion that Ballantine is “deep-brewed,” whatever that might mean. And I can’t help but wonder: what the hell is that rooster doing on his shoulder as he pours his beer?
Thursday’s ad is from 1949, a Ballantine ad that’s all green, in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. My initial thought is that it was printed in a magazine that wasn’t full color but instead used spot color, in this case black and green. But it works pretty well. And I love the slogan: “A flavor you will find in no other beverage.”
Monday marked the 25th anniversary of Triple Rock Brewery & Alehouse’s opening in 1986. Triple Rock was the third brewpub to open in California, the fifth in the U.S., and the only one still owned and operated by the original founders — John and Reid Martin. I stopped by this afternoon to join in the celebration and partake of the special beers that brewmaster Rodger Davis whipped up for the occasion.
The Triple Rock truck was running again and parked out front.
Davis re-created Batch No. 1, the first beer Triple Rock brewed.
The first beer John and Reid brewed was a pale ale created on Christmas Day in 1985. Rodger altered the recipe slightly to account for different yeast and varied the amount of hops.
Several former Triple Rock brewers stopped by for the party, including Shaun O’Sullivan, co-founder of 21st Amendment, whose first brewing job was at Triple Rock.
AT 5:00 p.m., co-founder John Martin tapped a firkin of the Batch No. 1 that current brewmaster Rodger Davis dry-hopped and aged for a beer that was both historical and modern.
Founders, and original brewers, John and Reid Martin, with their latest brewer, Rodger Davis, toasted the first 25 years with a beer bridging the past, the present and their future.
John Martin with Shaun O’Sullivan, Reid Martin, Homer Smith (owner of the local homebrew shop, Oak Barrel, where the Martins bought all the ingredients for their first batch in 1985), and longtime beer salesman Ed Chainey.
Congratulations to John and Reid Martin. I hope to try the next anniversary beer 25 years from now.
As today is Andrew Jackson’s birthday, for Tuesday’s ad I dusted off this 1908 ad for Budweiser in which Olde Hickory features prominently. The ad’s headline reads “1908 Budweiser is ‘Liquid Bread’ / ‘Liquid Life’ The Natural Drink of America / Andrew Jackson 7th President of the United States.” Below the drawing of Jackson on horseback in battle, the text suggests he drank only beer. “All his life,” begins the ad copy,” he drank the generous creative juices of the malt.” They don’t write ’em like that any more.
Monday’s ad is for Rheingold, and features Miss Rheingold for 1944, Jane House, inexplicably wrapped in flowers. The ad is originally from November, so I’m not sure what the significance is. Oh, well.
