Emergency Opener Preparedness

December 26, 2009 By Jay Brooks

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Having been a hardcore Boy Scout when I was a kid, I always took to heart their motto: “Be Prepared.” As a result, I’m never without an opener. I keep it on my keychain. I used to go through two or tree of the cheap ones every year, because they kept wearing out. But around a decade ago someone from Anchor Brewery gave me a titanium opener they put their logo on and it’s still going strong today.

But what if you found yourself in a situation where you had a bottle of beer but were without an opener? Well, if you had a piece of paper, you could still open the bottle pretty easily. Just watch the instructional video below and you’ll never be unable to open a beer bottle, even if you’re lost in the woods without a bottle opener.

Here’s a second video which seem to show the process a little more simply.

In case you don’t have a piece of paper, here’s another video showing many other ways to open a beer bottle.

A Blue Christmas Beer

December 25, 2009 By Jay Brooks

I’d heard of this Christmas beer, but I don’t think I realized the packaging was in blue, but then I don’t live in Denmark. Tuborg Brewery, owned by the Carlsberg Group, releases their holiday beer, known as Tuborg Julebryg, on J-Day, the first Friday in November (though this year it was the last Friday in October).

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I read somewhere that red glass is actually the best color for keeping out UV light, but that it was too expensive to be done commercially on a large scale. I have seen at least one red beer bottle (it’s in my ‘frig, a souvenir I picked up in Salzburg, Austria) but the only blue I can recall was the Apollo beer line from the 1990s.

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The idea for it being blue came from a successful ad campaign. From the Carlsbeg Group’s website:

Most Danes know the blue and white advertisement for Tuborg Julebryg (Tuborg Christmas Brew). But probably not many know that the famous animated commercial, which features Santa Claus in blue clothing, is actually older than the beer itself. The commercial was originally launched in 1980 as a special holiday commercial for ordinary Tuborg pilsner, but it became so popular that for Christmas 1981 we created the special Tuborg Julebryg.
Although Tuborg Julebryg is a seasonal beer and is only on the market for six weeks every year, it is still Denmark’s fourth best selling beer. It’s only beaten by Green Tuborg, Carlsberg Pilsner and Tuborg Classic, which are available all year round. Its launch, known as “J-day”, always takes place on the first Friday of every November and is an annual day of celebration across Denmark. Carlsberg employees drive around the bars and cafes, handing out free beer to really get the festive season started.
Tuborg Julebryg is a bottom-fermented, wiener beer brewed on lager, münchener and caramel malt with English liquorice. The beer is dark-golden with a fresh aroma of caramel, grain, liquorice and blackcurrant. It’s excellent with traditional Christmas recipes, smoked fish, grilled/fried herring, smoked ham with curly kale, roast pork and duck.

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Apparently they change the design from year to year, as here’s last year’s bottle.

1,000-Bottle Xmas Tree

December 24, 2009 By Jay Brooks

I’m pretty sure Heineken has done this in year’s past, too, but this year the bottle tree they built in Shanghai, China is more massive, using 1,000 bottles to create the glass Christmas tree.

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On Nanjing Road, the giant tree was built with full bottles of Heineken, which frankly is probably the best thing they could have done with them. That way no one will have to actually drink them. But they sure look cool.

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I’m Virgin America, Fly Me & Drink Craft Beer

December 22, 2009 By Jay Brooks

Though it’s been available on Virgin America (which since 2017 is owned by Alaskan Airlines) for a little while now, 21st Amendment Brewery formally announced yesterday that their canned IPAwas being served on Virgin flights in the U.S. From the press release:

Great craft beer on planes is finally reaching the blue skies, as the 21st Amendment Brewery is set to launch their Brew Free! or Die IPA in cans aboard Virgin America Airlines. Starting now Virgin America will serve complimentary Brew Free! or Die IPA in First Class and Main Cabin Select and the beer will be available for purchase in the Main Cabin for $7.

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While not the first canned craft beer on an airline, this is terrific news both for 21st Amendment and also beer loving passengers. It certainly makes me want to choose to fly Virgin wherever possible.

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21st Amendment co-owners Shaun O’Sullivan and Nico Freccia

Brookston Beer Quiz #1

December 15, 2009 By Jay Brooks

Here is the first of what will most likely be many beer quizzes. I’ll probably do a new one every few weeks. I have tons of similar graphics I’ve been collecting for another project and figured I’d put them to good use in the meantime.

This first one is pretty easy, though I think having multiple choice answers makes them all easier. For each question you’ll be show the first letter of a brewery or beer brand’s name from their logo or label and you have to identify which one it is. Good luck. Let me know how you did.

<a href="http://www.mystudiyo.com/act101409/mini/go/brookston_beer_quiz_#1">brookston_beer_quiz_#1</a>

Beer In Art #56: Mark Blanton’s Bohemia Pin-Up

December 13, 2009 By Jay Brooks

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This Sunday’s work of art is decidedly adult in nature, as much art often is, and is by Mark Blanton. Blanton is a modern artist, a hyper-realist it appears, and also has done a series of pin-up art, which he “created as a tribute to the Sixties’ art movement known as Pop Art and the work of Pop artist Mel Ramos, Pin-up artists Alberto Vargas and George Petty.” The highlighted work today, featuring Bohemia beer, is channeling Mel Ramos so much that for a long time I actually thought it was by Ramos.

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Looking through Ramos’ oeuvre revealed, as expected, many, many paintings of nude women with a commercial product of similar size, a pop art style that Ramos pioneered. But as many different variations as Ramos painted, I could not find one featuring a beer. You can see his work at Modernism, Art History, or the Ro Gallery .

Not finding it among Ramos’ works, I started looking elsewhere to identify it eventually finding Mark Blanton, many of whose works are strikingly similar to Ramos.

Given the obvious phallic symbolism of a beer bottle it seems strange that Ramos never did a painting with beer, although he did paint one with a wine bottle. Luckily, Blanton stepped in to fill the void.

You can also see more of Blanton’s Ramos-inspired pin-ups at his website, and also at Pin Up and Cartoon Girls and at the History of Pin Up Art.

Beer In Ads #9: Regal Pale Skiing

December 10, 2009 By Jay Brooks

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Today’s ad is most likely from the 1950s or early 60s, and is for Regal Pale Ale, a beer that was at least distributed in California as late as the 1960s, though I’m not sure where it was brewed and I can’t find my copy of American Breweries II under the mess that is my office. It’s been cold this week, not frozen tundra cold or even Pennsylvania-cold, but it has been California-cold with the kids delighting in seeing frost on the ground and watching me scrape ice off the car windows. That means ski weather, so I thought this ad of a skiing beer can cleverly using other beer paraphernalia to complete the picture was appropriate. I wonder what they considered the other great American beer?

Coincidentally, New Jersey’s legendary Heavyweight Brewing used the name Regal Pale Ale for the first of their OneTimeOnePlace (OTOP) series back in 2003.

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Bottle Openers Made By Blacksmiths

November 22, 2009 By Jay Brooks

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A few years ago, my friend Tom Peters, the co-owner of Monk’s Cafe in Philadelphia, celebrated a big anniversary, I can’t recall which one it was — five years maybe, ten? Anyway, he had a local blacksmith experiment with making the perfect bottle opener.

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Then, once he had the best design, he had 100 of them made with his logo stamped on the handle. I was somehow fortunate to be given one (thanks Tom!) and to date it’s been my favorite bottle opener I’ve ever owned. It just feels right in your hand, the perfect heft. It pops any crown with very little effort and makes a pleasantly satisfying sound in the process. In short, it’s a pleasure to use. It makes me want to open more beer bottles.

Last month, I was in Asheville, North Carolina on vacation with my family. In addition to wanting to check out their growing beer scene, there was a show we wanted to go to, the Craft Fair of the Southern Highland Craft Guild. My wife and I are huge fans of artisan crafts, hand made objects. It’s the same impulse that makes me love craft beer. We came home with a number of beautiful objects. But as we were first going in we happened upon a blacksmith set up outside the hall where the show was taking place. We stopped to watch him work and got to chatting. The blacksmith’s name was Alwin Wagener, and his business was known as Wagener Forge. He had a very interesting, cool looking corkscrew, so I told him the story of the Monk’s Cafe opener. He said he also had made bottle openers and asked how long we were going to be at the show, and we went inside for several hours. When we returned, he had made the opener pictured below.

It works as well as the Monk’s opener and is very cool looking, too. I love the green man’s face, with the hair looped up to hang it from. Because of strange state laws, we couldn’t buy it from him there and met him later at his studio, where we also picked up a handmade matching hook. The tile above it was also something we picked up at the craft fair. They two just seemed to compliment each other so I hung them together on the wall in our kitchen.

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Pete Brown On Beer Marketing

November 15, 2009 By Jay Brooks

While you should know Pete Brown from his books, especially what is arguably the best beer book of the year, Hops and Glory, he began his career in marketing and worked on several high-profile ad campaigns for well-known beer brands. On Wednesday in the UK’s Daily Mail, Pete had an interesting article giving his perspective on the present state of beer marketing. It’s entitled “The rise and fall of Britain’s favourite beers: Why brewers are desperate for us to spend £4 on a pint of lager”. Although it details British ad campaigns you may not be familiar with, it’s still worth a read, as many of the points he makes I think are universal.

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