Monday’s holiday ad is for Schlitz from 1950. It features a couple window shopping during the Christmas season, with the stereotyped woman eying the mink fur in the store window while the man checks out the Schlitz display next door. Who wouldn’t be thirsty after a long day of shopping?
With Hannakuh beginning December 1, Shmaltz Brewing has created a fun DIY way to make your own Menorah, using beer bottles — preferably He’Brew bottles.
Art by Chris Blair.
Our 44th Guinness poster by John Gilroy features Santa Claus hauling the biggest Christmas tree you ever saw and over by the reindeer there’s a bottle of Guinness, which is why the slogan for the ad is “Guinness for Strength.” But the main tagline of the ad is “Christmas Is Coming,” and through the end of the year, all of the ads spotlighted will be holidays ones.
Thursday’s Thanksgiving ad is a Miss Rheingold ad from 1945. In that year, Pat Boyd was Miss Rheingold. She was the fifth woman to hold the title. Leaning on a fence with a giant turkey perched on it, she’s reading “Carving the Easy Way,” which I can only assume would make the turkey nervous. “My beer is RHEINGOLD — the DRY beer! It’s beer as beer should taste.” Happy Thanksgiving everybody!
My friend and colleague, John Holl, was fortunate enough to appear on his local cable television station in New Jersey, News 12 New Jersey. He brought along several beers to suggest for the holiday tomorrow, including:
The 2nd annual BevMo Holiday Beerfest will be held at Fort Mason this Saturday, November 20, from 5:30 until 9:00 p.m.
More than 100 local and international breweries will be pouring over 150 holiday, seasonal and special beers, including cider. For the designated driver, they’ll also be serving craft soda. You can see a list of the beers being poured at the festival website.
Tickets are $40 and may be purchased online, and include unlimited samplings of the beer. Food will be available for purchase and three bands will be performing throughout the evening: Con Brio (Funk, Jazz & Soul), Sentinel (Indie Pop Alternative) and the Jugtown Pirates (Acoustic Psychedelic Bluegrass).
This was a fun festival last year and a great opportunity to try a number of different holiday seasonals at one place. See you there.
Thursday’s ad is for Schlitz Famo, from around 1918. Famo was their non-alcohol beer during Prohibition, or as they referred to it, “a pure non-intoxicating beverage.” I’m not sure what the tie-in was with the man in uniform, though it was during World War I, and since today is Veteran’s Day — originally Armistice Day for that war’s end.
Most of the beer companies scrambled to come up with a N/A brand in the years just before Prohibition as they finally started to see the writing on the wall. For an interesting overview of the names they came up with, check out Prohibition and Near-Beer Names.
During the early part of Prohibition, brewers at the time were emphasizing cleanliness by saying that “Schlitz Famo goes through a pulp filter–then through a sterilized pipe line to glass-lined tanks in a cool cellar for aging. A sterilized line carries it to automatic filling machines containing sterilized bottles, thence to Pasteurization” They further stressed the nutritional values of their products. The company boasted that Schlitz Famo is more than a drink. It is a food. Every time you take a glass of Schlitz Famo you are taking something to eat. Every compound essential to the human body is present in Schlitz Famo–protein, carbohydrates, mineral matter and water–the only factor absent being fats, and they are formed in the body from the carbohydrates. These elements repair and build up broken-down tissues and impart to the body heat and muscular energy. That’s why we say Schlitz Famo is a worth-while cereal beverage. It is non-intoxicating. It is healthful, refreshing and satisfying. It has the wonderful hop aroma.
With the World Series and baseball ads plus Halloween this weekend, I’m doubling up on ads so I can highlight both baseball and Halloween-themed ones. Today’s Halloween ad is from 1956 and is for Schlitz, depicting some pumpkin carving for Halloween. And to help their creativity along, they’re enjoying a couple of cans of Schlitz, poured into tall pilsner glasses.
And here’s just the artwork from the ad.
With the World Series and baseball ads plus Halloween this weekend, I’m doubling up on beer ads so I can also highlight a few Halloween-themed ones. The first of these is a Budweiser ad from 1953 featuring a truly scary mask and a witch holding up a glass of beer to toast a jack-o-lantern along with the tagline “When you know your beer … it’s bound to be Bud.
Our 44th Session will be hosted by Ashley Routson a.k.a. The Beer Wench. In honor of Halloween month, she’s chosen “Frankenstein Beers” as her topic, which Ashley likens to Frankenstein’s monster, a creation that was “constructed of human parts and various other inanimate objects,” defying nature’s laws and ultimately “unlike anything the world had ever seen before.” She continues.
Many craft brewers are like Frankenstein. They have become mad scientists obsessed with defying the laws of brewing and creating beers that transcend style guidelines. These “Frankenstein Beers” challenge the way people perceive beer. They are freaks of nature — big, bold and intense. The ingredients resemble those of a beer and the brewing process might appear to be normal, but some aspects of the entire experience are experimental, unorthodox and insane.
An altercation with these beers produces confusion in the eye of the taster … is it a beer, or a monster?
“I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other.” — The Monster.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to write a blog post on “Frankenstein Beers.” There are no rules about how to write about this topic — feel free to highlight a Frankenstien brewer, brewery, beer tasting notes … or just your opinions on the concept.
So don’t be afraid, pull out the surgical tools and make a trip to the cemetery (or bar) for parts — just don’t grab the jar marked — “abnormal” — for your own post for the next Session, on Friday, October 1.