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Beer In Ads #153: Today’s Hampden Is The Finest Yet!

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Monday’s ad is from 1959 and is for a brewery I’d not heard of before, Hampden Brewery of Willimansett, Massachusetts. The guy at the sparse desk is Karl H. Bissell, Sr., chairman of the board for the brewery, though at that time it was known as Hampden-Harvard Brewing. Eventually Piels bought it but the brewery was shut down in 1975. Curiously, it’s been restarted as a craft brewery earlier this year as Hampden Brewing Co.

Frankly, Bissell looks more like James Carville and I’m not quite sure how this guy with his cueball noggin sitting behind a big, empty desk was meant to inspire brand loyalty or switching brands. And the slogan “New England’s Finest Beer At New England’s Fairest Price” is not exactly Shakespeare, either.

Hampden Beer

They appear to have brewed ales and lagers.

Hampden

Harpoon To Can Their Beer

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Another regional brewery is joining the ranks of those who are canning craft beer. Harpoon Brewery is canning two of their beers, the I.P.A. and the Summer Beer.

From the press release:

The Harpoon Brewery is pleased to announce that your backpack will be a little easier to carry on hiking trips this summer; introducing Harpoon IPA and Harpoon Summer Beer in cans. Just in time for Memorial Day weekend, the Harpoon Brewery will offer its flagship India Pale Ale and seasonal Summer Beer in 12-ounce aluminum cans. The beer, which was brewed at Harpoon’s Windsor, VT brewery, is being canned at FX Matt in Utica, NY today. The new cans will enable New England craft beer lovers to enjoy Harpoon beers during summer activities and at locales where glass bottles are not convenient.

It’s interesting to see more larger craft breweries turn to cans these days. I’m guessing we’ll see more and more of this size brewery adding cans to their line-up.

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Beer In Art #63: David Hatfield’s Bartender

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Today’s works of art is called the Bartender, and is by a contemporary Massachusetts artist named David Hatfield. Though most of Hatfield’s paintings are landscapes, he does do the occasional portrait, such as the Bartender, though I don’t know much about the painting apart from the fact that it was sold in July of 2007. Also, it was an oil painting and was 40 x 29.5 in. But who the model was or where, if anywhere, the bar was where it was painted remain mysteries.

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Here’s part of Hatfield’s biography from the gallery where he exhibits his work, State of the Art Gallery:

David Hatfield showed early talent, creating his first painting in 1952. He received a BFA degree from Miami University, Ohio, and began his art career as an illustrator in New York City, completing studies at the School of Visual Arts and the Arts Student League before discovering the art colony in Rockport, Massachusetts and Hoosick Falls, New York. Here he devoted himself to his own work, painting outdoors, capturing the rural towns and farms in New York, Vermont and Massachusetts; the quaint seascapes and towns of Cape Ann; and picturesque cities of Europe. His sensitive portraits are much admired.

Mr. Hatfield continually paints outdoors, even in the cold of winter, creating large and small paintings in an impressionistic style, often including figures in the compositions. He states, “I am trying to create a rich painting in which each part is interesting in itself and becomes even richer in its relationship to every other part of the painting. This is a very difficult thing to do, which accounts for history’s few masterpieces and the beauty that these paintings possess. The shapes, forms, colors and subject matter all combine to form a complex and aesthetically pleasing unit”. He exhibits his work locally at State of the Art Gallery in Gloucester, Massachusetts.

You can see more of Hatfield’s work at the State of the Art Gallery and his American Gallery.

Sticker Shocking

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It appears MADD is up to their old tricks and actually this has probably been going on for some time albeit somewhat under the radar. In 1996, MADD created a youth organization of indoctrinated kids to do their dirty work for them called Youth In Action. One of their many “projects” is called Sticker Shock, which is described on their website:

YIA teams meet with local retailers that sell alcohol and ask permission to place warning stickers on the packaging of alcohol products (primarily beer). The stickers are very visible and warn of the consequences of purchasing alcohol for people under the age of 21. This project is designed to remind adults that they can be arrested for purchasing alcohol for minors.

Thanks for the “reminder” kids, but surely you could do something more constructive with your time. Maybe it’s the old curmudgeon in me, but it’s times like these when I miss the old days when children were to be seen and not heard. Do we really need these Stepford teens to lecture adults on the law?

This practice has apparently heated up in Massachusetts, with the state chapter there conducting raids of stores that sell alcohol to sticker the beer there.
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Happily, Todd and Jason Alstrom, from Beer Advocate, take them to task in a recent column in Boston’s Dig entitled Fascist Youth Vandalize Liquor Stores. It almost reads like a headline from The Onion, except that it’s true. After detailing MADD’s Hitler youth in action, they strike the right note of indignation, certainly the same one I had.

Shocked? No, we’re pissed off! This is wrong on so many levels! First, while we agree that selling alcohol to minors is not cool, these sticker shock campaigns are outright acts of vandalism. Who cares if the storeowner gave permission? Who cares if these neo-prohibitionists are accompanied by an adult? Who cares if the adult’s a cop? Their little stunt is still illegal: Brewers must get approval from federal agencies for all packaging, including labels. Not only do these stickers alter the packaging, but sloppy placement could cover crucial information that, by law, must be visible to consumers.

And what about that cop? C’mon, with a cop backing these kids up, it’s no wonder that storeowners are consenting. And why “primarily beer”? Show us stats proving that kids are more likely to be hitting up adults for beer than for spirits. And why sticker all the beer in stock? Why not restrict it to the brands most popular with teen drunks? And why do we, the adult consumers, need to be “reminded” that purchasing beer for minors is illegal in the first place? Who said we forgot? Who decided this crap should be shoved in our faces? The YIA site says: “YIA teams look for community solutions instead of focusing their attention on their peers” — but isn’t that exactly where the primary focus should be?

This is not “reminding,” it’s intimidation, pure and simple.

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The stickers read “Providing Alcohol to Minors is ILLEGAL. 4th Degree Felony. 18 Months in Jail. $5000 Fine. MADD’s Youth in Action.” All true, but why stop there. Why not sticker cans of soda with warnings that they can cause obesity. Coke and Pepsi would never sit still for that. In the UK several years ago McDonald’s sued a couple of activists literally for years because they had the audacity to criticize their food in what became known as the McLibel trial. But criticizing alcohol is perfectly acceptable because law enforcement and especially politicians are afraid to be reasonable thanks to the very vocal and active temperance minority, bowing to almost their every demand.

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Jason and Todd conclude with an excellent suggestion.

So we’re challenging all true beer lovers to refuse to buy any product that has been vandalized by YIA, and to tell shop owners you’ll be boycotting their establishments until they get their beer from under MADD’s thumb — literally.

Amen to that. Don’t buy if you see the sticker. We have to start standing up to these bullies. I know in some cases the retailers had little choice in reality, but if they know there are consequences for acquiescence, ones that hit their bottom line, then they’ll begin to do the right thing, which is tell these gang of youths to go “remind” somebody else. That the police give these stunts the imprimatur of legality is quite frankly Orwellian and more than a little frightening.