Historic Beer Ads
@beerpuffery
In case you travel back in time and need to pick a beer.
In tenpin bowling, a right-handed bowler usually aims for the 1-3 pocket, i.e. the gap b/w the 1 and 3 pins. Aiming for the off side pocket (1-2) can still get you a strike but it's trickier. Historically, bowlers in Brooklyn, NY aimed there on purpose, so those strikes are nicknamed Brooklyns.
Better Know a Beer Cap #111: Bell's Oberon Eclipse Raspberry Wheat. From 2025. Because now I feel compelled to prove that Bell's still has the juice, even when their cap game is being deployed to milk core brands dry in a tough market.
Better Know a Beer Cap #110: Bell's Smitten Golden Rye Ale. Beer's still around (I think) but this cap is from mid-2010s. Bell's used to have some of the best cap rizz, no cap. They still put out some good ones but not like they used to.
Placing the glass against the pocket really helped this ad resonate with target demos...except in Brooklyn. Michelob, 1970.
Better Know a Beer Cap #109: Leinenkugel's Canoe Paddler, circa 2010s design. Originally a summer seasonal kölsch, later taken year round. Never got the Nick Offerman spokesperson...uh, -ship that it deserved.
"Don't be a dope and spread inside dope." British and American Ambulance Corps, 1942.
Biere Pantherbräu, out of Brasseries Union Messine in Metz. That's in the Alsace-Lorraine region, hence the lingual mashup.
Sierra Nevada wouldn't let me have even one beer cap. Some tour, 1/5 stars.
Happy 250th Fourth of July. Let's move forward from the fantasy seen here instead of hiding in its fiction. Let's build the free and equitable America that was promised. The one worth lighting all these fireworks over. (US Brewers Foundation, 1955)
Sometime in the 1930s, Schepp's beer in Dallas offered a promotion: All you can drink for 60 cents an hour. Unrelated, Schepp's went out of business in 1939.
Better Know a Beer Cap #108: Stiegl Pils out of Salzburg, Austria. Sorry, Spain.
Spexial hell...a beer for Austrians who talk at the theater. Wiener Stadtbräu, 1953, via Wien Bibliothek.
Echtes Weizenbier für ein echtes Weizenbierbuch! Check it out (Wilhelm Remmer Brauere, Bremen, circa 1900-1913)
This is just a skosh more Dantean than I'm used to seeing in beer ads. Bonne Biere de Mars, 1842
I can only assume some Florence + the Machine fan fell into a time warp and posed for this in 1894. "Can You Beat It?" by Henry Jerome Schile, 1894.
Better Know a Beer Cap #107: Goose Island 312 Pale Ale (Chicago, IL) Th forgotten middle child between 312 and Goose IPA. Did this beer survive post-sale to AB-Inbev?
Borussia Malzbier, 1912. From the Borussia Brauerei in Berlin (Borussia is the Latin word for Prussia)
We can't stop now. Turn the reflecting pool brown. It's the only way to keep it from getting skunky.
Sorry Astra, there's a new Biermischungsgetränk named after local river water in town.
Can Kona put out a purple cap so I can finish my stupid little rainbow?
Someone forgot to set the newspaper to 4:3 for this ad. (Olympia, in Alaska's Nome Nugget newspaper, Dec 5, 1958)
Ballantine, 1957. This ad's got layyyers...shifting consumer tastes, early nods to light beer, highlight specific hop varieties (in the 50s!), and using ale vs lager distinctions to juice the stats.
Better Know a Beer Cap #106: Budweiser cap promoting Folds of Honor, a nonprofit supporting scholarships for families of fallen or disabled U.S. service members. I don't recall specifically what this cap came from, but Budweiser has partnered with Folds of Honor for 15+ years.
When was the last time you saw tablecloths, picnic baskets, and non-plastic flatware at a tailgate? Now how about a Giants tailgate? Schlitz, 1978