Friday’s ad is an odd one. It’s for the Staten Island, New York brewery Rubsam & Horrmann. Founded in 1870 in in the town of Stapleton. Piels bought them out in 1953 but closed the brewery ten years later. The ad’s scene is set in Cuba, so I’m guessing the ad is from around the time of the Spanish-American War, which was in 1898. The guy in the brown hat looks like Teddy Roosevelt and the on the right the white-haired man resembles either Buffalo Bill Cody or Mark Twain. But despite the navy parked in Havana harbor, they’re all toasting with Rubsam & Horrmann beer.

Wednesday’s ad is for Rheingold from 1969 and uses baseball and the signs of a good player, showing a few of the qualities one might look for in a good ballplayer. Then it applies the same idea to beer, saying “Look for the sign of a great beer! The Rheingold 10 minute head.” Look at that mug, it’s all head. A generous head, yes, but one that takes 10 minutes to subside (which is my presumption as to what they mean) seems like suspect advice to me. Two fingers is pretty much ideal for most beers, but more than that and you’ll lose too much carbonation and flavors, and Rheingold at that time probably didn’t have much to spare.

Thursday’s ad is for Rheingold, from the 1960s. It’s a baseball themed ad and features the slogan “A Hit Every Time.” I know it’s a New York beer, but the uniform colors and the large red “R” makes me think of my old hometown team, the Reading Phillies.

Wednesday’s ad is all about circles and is for Schaefer beer in cans from 1959. Using imagery from the top of the can with round burgers, they make the case that because of their similar roundness, they should — and do, I should add — go great together. But check out this priceless bit of adspeak copy. “Nothing goes with burgers like Schaefer. The flavor’s something special … never sharp, never flat, a smooth round taste. That’s why folks say it’s — REAL BEER!”

Thursday’s ad is for Genesee Brewing from 1968 since today is their 77th anniversary. It’s a pretty simple time-honored strategy showing a sexy, scantily-clad female atop a giant beer can. I love the arrow pointing to the slogan “a little more exciting …” I guess they worried no one would even read it, what with their eyes unable to look below the dangling foot.

Wednesday’s ad is for a presumably short-lived New York City brewery, Brewer’s Best Associates, Inc., which was located at 620 Fifth Avenue. The ad for their Pilsener Beer is from 1947. The normally authoritative American Breweries II doesn’t even have a listing for the brewery, which is odd. It’s the first time I’ve looked up a brewery and it wasn’t listed. Given that I’ve never heard of it and there doesn’t seem to be a record of the brewery, it’s funny that their slogan is all about remembering their name, “The New Big Name in Beer.” I guess it didn’t work out as they’d hoped. The other funny thing in the ad is the endorsement from “Ted Collins, owner of Boston Yanks Pro-Football Team and famous radio producer.” The Boston Yanks were a short-lived team that only played from 1944-47. In 1948, they relocated to New York City and were the New York Bulldogs for a season before becoming the New York Yanks until 1952, when they played their final season in Texas as the Dallas Texans. As for the beer, I guess it wasn’t “the beer you’ve been waiting for” after all.

UPDATE: An alert reader (thanks Beer Dave!) offered some additional information about Brewer’s Best.

Brewers Best was actually not a brewery. This was a franchise of sorts. Brewers Best was brewed at about 25 different small breweries around the US. The headquarters in NY was essentially a sales office. This brand had national distribution through the network of small brewers who brewed the beer under contract.