Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Beer In Ads #3920: Win, Twins!

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Thursday’s ad is for “Hamm’s,” from the 1960s. This ad was made for Hamm’s Brewing, which was founded in 1865 by Theodore Hamm in St. Paul, Minnesota. At its peak, it was the 5th largest brewery in America, and operated facilities in five cities, including San Francisco, L.A., Baltimore and Houston, in addition to the original brewery in Minnesota. This ad uses the long-running character Sascha, better known as the Hamm’s Bear, a cartoon mascot that the brewery began using in 1952 to great success, and only stopped using in 2000. This one also shows the bear squeezing the twins of Minnesota baseball fame, but is on a placemat that also includes the schedule for the season, though I can’t quite make out exactly what years it is. The full tagline is “Win, Twins! we’re with you all the way!”

Beer In Ads #3919: Hamm’s Bear Hug

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Wednesday’s ad is for “Hamm’s,” from the 1960s. This ad was made for Hamm’s Brewing, which was founded in 1865 by Theodore Hamm in St. Paul, Minnesota. At its peak, it was the 5th largest brewery in America, and operated facilities in five cities, including San Francisco, L.A., Baltimore and Houston, in addition to the original brewery in Minnesota. This ad uses the long-running character Sascha, better known as the Hamm’s Bear, a cartoon mascot that the brewery began using in 1952 to great success, and only stopped using in 2000. This one shows the bear squeezing the twins of Minnesota baseball fame, an association Hamm’s continued for most of its existence.

Beer In Ads #3918: Here’s How … Stan Musial Poles Out Extra-Base Hits

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Tuesday’s ad is for “Hamm’s,” from 1949. This ad was made for Hamm’s Brewing, which was founded in 1865 by Theodore Hamm in St. Paul, Minnesota. At its peak, it was the 5th largest brewery in America, and operated facilities in five cities, including San Francisco, L.A., Baltimore and Houston, in addition to the original brewery in Minnesota. This one is part of a short series called “Here’s How,” in which a different skill is explained in each ad. In this one, they explain how “Stan Musial poles out extra-base hits,” with the tagline: “Here’s how … with Hamm’s Beer Smooth and Mellow.” Stan Musial, of course was a rather famous baseball player. He was nicknamed “Stan the Man,” and played outfield and first base for 22 seasons in Major League Baseball, all of them “for the St. Louis Cardinals, from 1941 to 1944 and from 1946 to 1963. Widely considered to be one of the greatest and most consistent hitters in baseball history, Musial was a first-ballot inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1969. He batted .331 over the course of his career and set National League (NL) records for career hits (3,630), runs batted in (1,951), games played (3,026), at bats (10,972), runs scored (1,949) and doubles (725). His 475 career home runs then ranked second in NL history behind Mel Ott’s total of 511. A seven-time batting champion, he was named the National League’s (NL) Most Valuable Player (MVP) three times and was a member of three World Series championship teams. He also shares the major league record for the most All-Star Games played (24) with Hank Aaron and Willie Mays.” And in the panels, Stan the Man shows how he wings the bat.

Beer In Ads #3914: Here’s How … To Make A Smooth Serve

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Friday’s ad is for “Hamm’s,” from 1949. This ad was made for Hamm’s Brewing, which was founded in 1865 by Theodore Hamm in St. Paul, Minnesota. At its peak, it was the 5th largest brewery in America, and operated facilities in five cities, including San Francisco, L.A., Baltimore and Houston, in addition to the original brewery in Minnesota. This one is part of a short series called “Here’s How,” in which a different skill is explained in each ad. In this one, they explain how “to make a Smooth serve,” with the tagline: “Here’s how … with Hamm’s Beer Smooth and Mellow.” This one shows tennis pro Johnny Faunce serving, with the inset panels going through the steps of serving a tennis ball, and, of course, how to enjoy a beer after the match.

Beer In Ads #3912: Here’s How … Hamm’s Beer Scores A Mellow Moment

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Wednesday’s ad is for “Hamm’s,” from 1949. This ad was made for Hamm’s Brewing, which was founded in 1865 by Theodore Hamm in St. Paul, Minnesota. At its peak, it was the 5th largest brewery in America, and operated facilities in five cities, including San Francisco, L.A., Baltimore and Houston, in addition to the original brewery in Minnesota. This one is part of a short series called “Here’s How,” in which a different skill is explained in each ad. In this one, they explain how “Hamm’s Beer Scores a Mellow Moment,” with the tagline: “Here’s how … with Hamm’s Beer Smooth and Mellow.” This is another odd one. It tells the story of Walt Brown (Class of ’27) who waits until the day of the big game to try to buy tickets for himself and three friends, even though he’d promised them it would be no problem. Well, lo and behold the game is sold out (because obviously a college education doesn’t make you smarter, just more educated) and now he’s in a pickle. Luckily, his friends smoked some weed beforehand and are totally mellow so they offer to go back to their place and watch the football game on their television set and have some munchies. So Walt picks up some beer and all is forgiven. Now that’s a mellow moment.

Beer In Ads #3911: Here’s How … To Swim A Smooth Backstroke

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Tuesday’s ad is for “Hamm’s,” from 1949. This ad was made for Hamm’s Brewing, which was founded in 1865 by Theodore Hamm in St. Paul, Minnesota. At its peak, it was the 5th largest brewery in America, and operated facilities in five cities, including San Francisco, L.A., Baltimore and Houston, in addition to the original brewery in Minnesota. This one is part of a short series called “Here’s How,” in which a different skill is explained in each ad. In this one, they explain how “to swim a Smooth backstroke,” with the tagline: “Here’s how … with Hamm’s Beer Smooth and Mellow.” Given some of the other ads in this series, I would have expected they would have used a famous swimmer, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. But it does show in six steps how to do a backstroke, with two more panels devoted to having a beer afterwards.

Beer In Ads #3908: Here’s How … Connie Schwoegler Rolls A Smooth Strike

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Saturday’s ad is for “Hamm’s,” from 1949. This ad was made for Hamm’s Brewing, which was founded in 1865 by Theodore Hamm in St. Paul, Minnesota. At its peak, it was the 5th largest brewery in America, and operated facilities in five cities, including San Francisco, L.A., Baltimore and Houston, in addition to the original brewery in Minnesota. This one is part of a short series called “Here’s How,” in which a different skill is explained in each ad. In this one, they explain how “Connie Schwoegler rolls a Smooth strike,” with the tagline: “Here’s how … with Hamm’s Beer Smooth and Mellow.” Connie Schwoegler was named BWAA (Bowling Writers Association of America) Bowler of the Year in 1949. Schwoegler won 15 other tournament titles. In 1948, Schwoegler pioneered an extended ball grip which was copyrighted under his name and led to the popularity of what is now known as the fingertip grip.

Beer In Ads #3771: Rainier After Exercise

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Monday’s ad is for “Rainier Beer,” from 1904. This ad was made for the Seattle Brewing & Malting Co., who made Rainier Beer, and was later known as the Rainier Brewing Company of Seattle, Washington. This one shows a woman golfing and has the text: “After Exercise there is nothing that will recuperate exhausted force more quickly than Rainier Beer.”

Beer In Ads #3683: Miller Lite Beer Camping Trip

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Wednesday’s ad is for “Miller Lite,” from 1984. This ad was made for the Miller Brewing Co., and was part of their long-running “Tastes Great!…Less Filling!” advertising campaign. It was created in 1973 by the McCann-Erickson Worldwide ad agency and was ranked by Advertising Age magazine as the eighth best advertising campaign in history. They were primarily television commercials but they did create print ads to support the TV spots. They began with a trend of using former athletes along with a few notable celebrities that continued throughout the campaign. This one features another celebrity roster of Lite Beer personalities on a camping trip, or at least staged around a fire. At least in this ad, there’s a key at the bottom so you can identify everybody in attendance.

Beer In Ads #3682: Bowling League For Miller Lite

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Tuesday’s ad is for “Miller Lite,” from the 1980s. This ad was made for the Miller Brewing Co., and was part of their long-running “Tastes Great!…Less Filling!” advertising campaign. It was created in 1973 by the McCann-Erickson Worldwide ad agency and was ranked by Advertising Age magazine as the eighth best advertising campaign in history. They were primarily television commercials but they did create print ads to support the TV spots. They began with a trend of using former athletes along with a few notable celebrities that continued throughout the campaign. This one features a celebrity roster of former Lite Beer personalities posing as two bowling teams with the tagline “Lite Beer: The Winner in Any League.” I count at least 22 people in the ad, although I suspect part of the ad is cut off since it feels like something may be missing. I don’t know everyone in the photo, but I do see Bubba Smith, Ray Nitschke, Dick Butkus, Ben Davidson, Truman Capote, John Madden, Rodney Dangerfield, and Boog Powell. Who else do you see?

Here’s a better image of the assembled folks.