Brookston Beer Bulletin

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Beer In Art #68: Henry Singleton’s Ale-House Door

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Today’s work of art was originally painted around 1790, when the English pub was a very different animal. It was created by Henry Singleton, a British artist who lived from 1766-1839. This painting, The Ale-House Door, is an oil on canvas painting roughly 10 x 12 inches, and the original can be found at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. It’s also sometimes known by the title At the Inn Door.

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The pub looks like it was probably called The Bell, though I’m just guessing based on the sign. According to my handy Dictionary of Pub Names, the Bell is a fairly common pub name owing to the idea that a “bell speaks all languages.”

You can read more about Singleton at his Wikipedia page and there’s a biography of him from the Grove Dictionary of Art, too. You can see a few more of his works at the Tate and there are more links at ArtCyclopedia.

Beer In Ads #59: Whitbread’s Here’s Health

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Friday’s ad is for Whitbread beer, since that’s who I was writing about for this month’s Session post today. This one is from 1930 and fittingly features a boat on the water. “Ashore or Afloat WHITBREAD’S PALE ALE is the best Summer beverage.” The art has the same idealized look as the series that U.S. Brewers Foundation started in the late 1940s, Beer Belongs.

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And here’s another from what looks to be the same series, though this one features a lunch setting.

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You can also see a larger, though watermarked, lunch ad and there’s also a third one from the series, this one in a canoe. Lastly, here’s a clearer, but again watermarked, version of the boat ad.

Beer In Ads #58: Ruppert People Have A Thirst For Living

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Thursday’s ad is for Ruppert Beer, because today is the birthday of Jacob Ruppert, Sr., father of his more famous son Junior or Jake, who founded the famous New York brewery in 1867. Ruppert’s most famous brand was Knickerbocker, a Dutch name that eventually became a term for New Yorker (and where the basketball “Knicks” got their name). Based on the colorful outfits in the ad, I’m guessing early Sixties. The slogan “Ruppert People Have A Thirst For Living” is pretty awesomely funny, but I really love the copy below it, more of that sparkling text of the era.

Ruppert people are folksier, friendlier, joksier, livelier. Their beer is Ruppert Knickerbocker, the beer with the flavor as lively as they are. Ruppert flavor took a hundred years and four generations of Rupperts to create. You can taste the difference. Blindfolded.

Sounds like a challenge. Blindfold me. I certainly want to hang out with people who are “folksier, friendlier, joksier, livelier,” especially that guy with the pipe. I bet he tells a mean joke.

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Literature and the English Pub

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If you’re a fan of great English literature and its relationship to the traditional pub, you may enjoy this program from BBC 4. It was first broadcast March 1 and will be available to listen to on the BBC’s archive until this Saturday, March 6. Here’s the description of it from the website:

From Falstaff at The Boar’s Head to John Self at The Shakespeare in Martin Amis’s Money, English literature and the pub are intertwined. It started in a pub — Chaucer’s pilgrims setting out from The Tabard in Southwark — and has been waiting to be chucked out ever since. Robert Hanks presents an elegy for pubs in literature and an exploration of what the smoking ban, the gastro pub and the five quid pint are going to do to writing.

It’s just under an hour long, but goes by quickly if you love this sort of thing, as I do. So settle in with a beer and give it a listen. Thanks to my friend Glenn Payne for letting me know about this fascinating show.

Beer Birthday: J (Yes, Embarrasing Myself This Time)

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Today is my 51st birthday, and I’ve been overwhelmed by an embarrassment of riches from well-wishers sending me notes via e-mail, Twitter and Facebook. Thanks to one and all. Since it’s usually me posting embarrassing photos of my friends and colleagues, last year I posted a bunch encompassing my first 50 years on a page entitled Beer Birthday Overkill. From old baby photos to the high fashion of the 70s and beyond, they’re still up and good for a chuckle. So again in a spirit of fair play and transparency, here are a few more cringe-worthy photos from my days of youthful indiscretions.

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Another classic from the early 70s, around 1972 or 73 when I was 13 or 14. It was taken for a church directory when the Lutheran Church I attended was celebrating their 100-year anniversary, or something like that. My Mom actually made the jacket and, no offense to her, but she was not the finest seamstress to peddle a sewing machine. You gotta love the butterfly bow-tie look. I’m sure glad that died a much-deserved fashion death.

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At Woodstock (’94 — I’m not that old!) and yes, that’s a can of Miller Genuine Draft I’m holding. After a few days in the mud, we couldn’t be very picky or stand on ceremony about using the proper glass, sad to say. The sleepy-looking fellow next to me is Jim Noecker, my oldest friend in the world, who I’ve known since we were in kindergarten together.

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While I can’t recall the exact details of where or when this photo was taken, it was definitely on one of my first dates with my wife Sarah, which places it around 1993 or so, roughly seventeen years ago. Good god, we look young.

There’s many more where these came from, just check out Beer Birthday Overkill and thanks again for all the birthday wishes.

Beer In Ads #57: Reading Beer’s Reach For Reading Draft

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Since today’s my birthday, Wednesday’s ad is from my hometown of Reading, Pennsylvania, where the locak beer growing up was Reading Premium Beer. And let me clear up one thing right away — it’s pronounced “red-ing,” not “reed-ing.” We’re the first railroad in Monopoly. The Reading Brewery closed in 1976, but Schmidt’s continued to contract brew it for the local market, at least until 1987, when G. Heileman bought it. Eventually it became part of the Pabst stable of forgotten brands. Recently Legacy Brewing, also in Reading, Pennsylvania, resurrected the brand, but the website is down so I’m not sure what happened, though that’s not exactly a promising sign. It vwas actually harder to find an ad for them then I expected, but I tracked this one down from the Reading Eagle (one of two local papers, until they later merged with rival Reading Times). This ad ran in the August 18, 1964 newspaper.

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The ad uses one of favorite ad slogans of all-time, “The Friendly Beer For Modern People.” You just don’t see ad copy like that anymore, which is a shame. Slogans and copy today usually seem so calculated, so shaded with meaning, so safe and scientific. This just sparkles. Here’s the whole text of the ad:

The Friendly Beer for Modern People creates a magic mood of merriment. There’s loads of fun and friendship in brisk, frisky Reading Draft. So next time you’re out on the town, ask your favorite bartender to Reach for Reading Draft … a rollicking, frolicking brew!

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And while you can’t see it on the black and white tap handle in the ad, the Reading Beer logo is also very cool, with golden concentric circles around a blue dot in the center, also containing the brand name, as shown in the old beer tray below.

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Beer In Ads #56: Dr. Seuss For Narragansatt

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Here’s some bonus Beer In Ads for today, because Dr. Seuss — whose birthday is today — also created ads for the Narragansatt Brewery in Rhode Island during the 1940s. The brewery opened in 1890, but closed in 1981, and then the brand reappeared again in 2005.

Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, early in his career did advertising work for various companies, such as Schaefer beer and Narragansatt. I have yet one more fun Dr. Seuss and beer post planned for today, so stay tuned.

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A “Gangway For Gansett!” beer tray for Narragansatt beer done by Dr. Suess.

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A coaster with Chief Gansatt and the tagline “Too Good To Miss.”

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Narragansatt also apparently made a Bock, as well. This Dr. Seuss poster was done around 1942.

The new Narrgansatt also has some additional print ads that Dr. Seuss did for them. Though they’re small and fuzzy, they’re unmistakably his work. There’s two ads here and one more here. The book The Seuss, The Whole Seuss, and Nothing But the Seuss also includes some information about Geisel’s role in the Narragansatt beer campaigns beginning at page 226 (and there’s also more examples).

But one of the most fascinating revelations from the Narragansatt Beer website is the following:

We found was both his father, Theodor Robert Geisel, and grandfather Geisel were brewers. In fact his German immigrant grandfather owned the Kalmbach and Geisel Brewery, or “Come Back and Guzzle” by the locals, in Springfield. In 1894 it was renamed the Highland Brewery and five years later it became part of the Springfield Breweries. But in 1919 on the day Theodor Robert became president, prohibition forced the brewery to close forever. His father got a job as the city’s Parks Superintendent, but Theodor Seuss must have never forgotten how prohibition forced his family business to close. While attending Dartmouth College during prohibition he was arrested for throwing a drinking party and kicked off the Jack-O-Lantern, Dartmouth’s humor magazine. He continued to secretly submit works signed “Seuss.” This is the first record of Theodor Geisel using the “Suess” pseudonym which is both his middle and mother’s maiden name. During WWII he created anti-prohibition political cartoons and developed the Chief Gansett ads [for Narragansatt].

Beer In Ads #55: Dr. Seuss For Schaefer

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Tuesday’s ad is for Schaefer beer promoting their bock beer in the early 1940s. It was done by none other than Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. Today is the birthday of Dr. Seuss, who early in his career did advertising work for various companies. I have some more fun Dr. Seuss and beer posts planned for today, so stay tuned.

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Classic Dr. Seuss for Schaefer’s Bock beer, from March 1937.

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Here’s another Dr. Seuss bock advert for Schaefer Bock.

Beer In Ads #54: Budman

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Monday’s ad is for Budman, who made his debut this day in 1969 as a cartoon spokesman for Budweiser. Today’s ad also ran circa 1969 and so it most likely is one of the first Budman ads and certainly the tagline “Dauntless Defender of Quality” is the one I’m most familiar with. I imagine A-B couldn’t even have a cartoon character today since the neo-prohibitionists cry fowl every time a beer label uses any sort of cartoon imagery, curiously believing cartoons appeal only to children.

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