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Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Beer In Ads #2494: Catch As Catch Can’t

December 18, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Monday’s ad is for Guinness, from 1933. While the best known Guinness ads were undoubtedly the ones created by John Gilroy, Guinness had other creative ads throughout the same period and afterward, too, which are often overlooked. This ad, one of many that used Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is titled “Catch As Catch Can’t,” and although it has Alice in the mix, it takes place in the Guinness Zoo, with the lion chasing the zookeeper around a tree (in a scene reminiscent of “The Story of Little Black Sambo”) trying to catch him to get the bottle and glass of Guinness he’s carrying.

Guinness-1933-catch-as-catch-cant

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Guinness, History, Literature

Beer In Ads #2493: A Sane Lunch Party

December 17, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Sunday’s ad is for Guinness, from 1931. While the best known Guinness ads were undoubtedly the ones created by John Gilroy, Guinness had other creative ads throughout the same period and afterward, too, which are often overlooked. This ad, one of many that used Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is titled “A Sane Lunch Party,” and the Mad Hater exploring any means necessary to get a glass of Guinness.

Guinness-1931-sane-lunch-party

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Guinness, History, Literature

Beer In Ads #2492: A Guinness Carroll

December 16, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Saturday’s ad is for Guinness, from 1932. While the best known Guinness ads were undoubtedly the ones created by John Gilroy, Guinness had other creative ads throughout the same period and afterward, too, which are often overlooked. This ad, one of many that used Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is titled “A Guinness Carroll,” and features a rewritten poem by Lewis Carroll, “You Are Old, Father William” which is from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” published in 1865. “It is recited by Alice in Chapter 5, ‘Advice from a Caterpillar’ (Chapter 3 in the original manuscript, Alice’s Adventures Under Ground). Alice informs the Caterpillar that she has previously tried to repeat ‘How Doth the Little Busy Bee’ and has had it all come wrong as ‘How Doth the Little Crocodile.’ The Caterpillar asks her to repeat ‘You Are Old, Father William,’ and she recites.” Of course, they added Guinness into the mix.

Guinness-1932-father-william

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Guinness, History, Literature

Beer In Ads #2491: Why Was The Mad Hatter Mad?

December 15, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Friday’s ad is for Guinness, from 1932. While the best known Guinness ads were undoubtedly the ones created by John Gilroy, Guinness had other creative ads throughout the same period and afterward, too, which are often overlooked. This ad, one of many that used Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is titled “Why Was The Mad Hatter Mad?,” and is about how Alice, the March Hare, and the Mad Hatter can’t get a glass of Guinness, and it’s making them mad.

Guinness-1932-mad-hatter-madder

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Guinness, History, Literature

Esperanto Beer

December 15, 2017 By Jay Brooks

esperanto
Today is Zamenhof Day, which is also sometimes called Esperanto Literature Day and Esperanto Day. It’s today because it’s the birthday of Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof, usually known as L.L. Zamenhof. As you probably know, I’m fascinated with language. If you’re not familiar with the language of Esperanto, it’s “a constructed international auxiliary language. With an estimated two million speakers worldwide, it is the most widely spoken constructed language in the world. The Polish-Jewish ophthalmologist L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, Unua Libro, in Warsaw on July 26, 1887. The name of Esperanto derives from Doktoro Esperanto (Esperanto translates as “one who hopes”), the pseudonym under which Zamenhof published Unua Libro.”

Zamenhof’s goal was to create a neutral language so that international relations didn’t have to choose one over another that in the process would indicate bias in negotiations between world powers. A lofty goal, but it never quite caught on, although there are still around 350 native speakers and between 2 and 10 million people who have some familiarity with using the language.

Even Google Translate includes Esperanto as one of its supported languages, and it’s interesting to see how beer and other beer-related terms are expressed in the language:

  • beer = biero
  • brewery = bierfarejo
  • brewing = bukado
  • hops = lupolojn
  • malt = malto
  • pub or bar = trinkejo
  • yeast = feĉo

If you’re interested in learning more, check out Time magazine’s “The Serious History Behind Esperanto.” The few remaining Esperanto speakers get together annually for a convention and a few years ago they even created a beer for a language festival.

Esperanto_Biero

Filed Under: Just For Fun, Related Pleasures Tagged With: Literature, Words

Beer In Ads #2490: Off With Its Head!

December 14, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Thursday’s ad is for Guinness, from 1932. While the best known Guinness ads were undoubtedly the ones created by John Gilroy, Guinness had other creative ads throughout the same period and afterward, too, which are often overlooked. This ad, one of many that used Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is titled “Off With Its Head!,” and is about not chopping off a head, but the head on a glass of Guinness … oh, and croquet.

Guinness-1932-off-with-its-head

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Guinness, History, Literature

Beer In Ads #2489: The Walrus And The Carpenter

December 13, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Wednesday’s ad is for Guinness, from 1929. While the best known Guinness ads were undoubtedly the ones created by John Gilroy, Guinness had other creative ads throughout the same period and afterward, too, which are often overlooked. This ad, one of many that used Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is titled “The Walrus and the Carpenter,” and features a re-written poem all about eating oysters with Guinness to wash them down. I’ve always been a little creeped out by food that wants to be eaten. It’s a persistent theme in advertising, but if you ever stop to think about what they’re advocating, it’s pretty horrible.

Guinness-1929-carpenter

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers, Food & Beer Tagged With: Advertising, Food, Guinness, History, Literature

Beer In Ads #2488: Mushroom Growth

December 12, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Tuesday’s ad is for Guinness, from the 1950s. While the best known Guinness ads were undoubtedly the ones created by John Gilroy, Guinness had other creative ads throughout the same period and afterward, too, which are often overlooked. This ad, one of many that used Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is titled “Mushroom Growth,” and features a story about Alice talking to a caterpillar who drinks Guinness to grow stronger, but Alice concludes she doesn’t have to grow barley and hops, since the people at Guinness already do that and all she has to do is drink their beer.

Guinness-1950s-mushroom-growth

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Guinness, History, Literature

Beer In Ads #2487: A Mad Lunch Party

December 11, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Monday’s ad is for Guinness, from the 1950s. While the best known Guinness ads were undoubtedly the ones created by John Gilroy, Guinness had other creative ads throughout the same period and afterward, too, which are often overlooked. This ad, one of many that used Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is titled “A Mad Lunch Party,” and features a story about Alice, the Mad Hatter and the white rabbit trying to figure out how to have a lunch party and get some more Guinness.

Guinness-1950s-mad-lunch-party

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Guinness, History, Literature

Beer In Ads #2486: Alice Studies Natural History

December 10, 2017 By Jay Brooks


Sunday’s ad is for Guinness, from 1952. While the best known Guinness ads were undoubtedly the ones created by John Gilroy, Guinness had other creative ads throughout the same period and afterward, too, which are often overlooked. This ad, one of many that used Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland is titled “Alice Studies Natural History,” and features a Carroll-esque story about a tiny Alice conversing with the red queen about science … and Guinness.

Guinness-alice-natural-history

Filed Under: Art & Beer, Beers Tagged With: Advertising, Guinness, History, Literature, Science

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