Tuesday’s ad is for Ballantine Ale from 1949 and take an unusual approach. The ad highlights three hotels and restaurants carrying Ballantine Ale, and especially their servers. These include the Homestead in Hot Springs, Virginia, the Ambassador’s Pump Room in Chicago, Illinois and the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, California.
Monday’s ad is for Schlitz from 1952 featuring the once popular hobby of Ham Radio operating. With, presumably, the missus thoughtfully bringing in a tray of Schlitz and a pilsner glass. Apparently, that’s the message from Milwaukee, not whatever’s coming over the airwaves.
Our 63rd Guinness ad shows our intrepid toucan as a miner, working away down below. But instead of finding gold nuggets, he instead finds black gold, not Texas tea, but Guinness. It’s one of the usual slogans again, “My Goodness, My Guinness.”
Friday’s ad is for Schlitz from 1949 showing a close-up of a can and a bottle, with a full beer glass in what appears to be a library setting. You can just make out on one of the leather-bound books that the first word in the title is “beer.” Though there is one discrepancy. Notice that the bottle isn’t even half empty but the beer glass is full. There’s no way that portion of the bottle could fill a beer glass that looks to be at least 12 oz., if not a full pint. Hmm.
Thursday’s ad is for Miller High Life from 1957 showing a delicious-looking meal of steak with a number of side dishes, like roasted tomatoes, peas in mushroom caps(?) and onion rings. And how about that big pat of butter on top? I’m hungry now. The tagline is great, too. “For the taste of your life ‘Go First Class’ with Miller High Life.”
Wednesday’s ad is a World War 2-era one for Pabst Blue Ribbon which despite depicting two couples, uses the curious slogan “Good Beer For Good Fellows.” Sure, women are explicitly mentioned in the copy, but the slogan and art just don’t seem to jibe, though it is a cool painting.
Last week, you may recall, I had the opportunity to spend some time with Jack McAuliffe, founder of the first modern microbrewery in America; New Albion Brewery. That was the week after the annual Craft Brewers Conference, which was held this year in San Francisco. At CBC, the elusive Jack was in town for his first appearance at a public beer event in a very, very long time. He was going to do a Q&A session along with a short talk by Maureen Ogle, author of Ambitious Brew, and Jack’s daughter, Renee DeLuca, who writes online at the Brewer’s Daughter. As an amateur beer historian, and lover of the subject, seeing the man who built the first microbrewery from scratch back in 1976 was simply something I was not going to miss. I arrived early and got a chance to meet Jack for the first time. Needless to say, it was a great treat.
Jack and me at CBC.
After a talk by Jack’s daughter Renee on social media, Maureen discussed “The Long View of the Big Picture,” lessons learned from failed breweries and what the ones who survived did to keep going. Then the session was turned over to jack, who answered questions from the audience for a good half hour. I recorded Jack’s Q&A and you can listen to it below. Enjoy.
Tuesday’s ad is a 1950 ad for Schlitz, one of the three-panel ads that goes from curiosity to sampling to loving Schlitz. This one has a diving theme, not scuba diving but the old diving bell type.
Monday’s ad is for Pilsner Urquell. While I don’t know the true age of the ad, it definitely has a turn of the century look to it. Many beer ads from the late 1800s depict beautiful women of the day with beers in their hands, though I love the added touch of the hops around the barrel of beer.
Summit Brewing, in St. Paul, Minnesota, commissioned a local artist, Miss Amy Jo, to create a poster celebrating the passage of the Cullen-Harrison on its effective date of April 7, 1933. Eight months before the repeal of Prohibition, the bill allowed the production of 3.2 beer in about twenty states, including Minnesota. I love the retro look of it. It will probably drive historian Bob Skilnik batty, but it’s a cool poster and it’s available for purchase at Summit’s online store.
