Old beer ads.

Cool idea. How about old signs along the roads? I don't have my own photo, but this link should show an old Horlacher beer ad in Thomasville, PA.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.928...MmLBPb8RHO_7ImOg!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

 

This one is pretty nice I think in the level of detail, and the beer in the glass mug looks quite striking and appetizing. I imagine it's from the early 1900s, 1900-1914 or thereabout (pre-WW1 when Swedish lager beer was still dominating sales as opposed to pilsner type beer).

 

Separated at birth?

Although Genesee's "Jenny" was also portrayed somewhat differently at times:

 

For folks who didn't play to the end of @seakayak's post #6 , there's an easter egg link to almost 1.5 hours of beer ads from the 50' & 60's:


Some I've definitely never hear of, like P.O.C. (Pleasure On Call)

 

I don't know where this beer was brewed, but when I lived in the Cleveland area we thought P.O.C. was Pride of Cleveland.

 

POC means whatever you want it to, apparently.
From https://clevelandhistorical.org/files/show/2597
(nice old photo) Workers pack beer at the Pilsener Brewing Company, located at Clark Avenue and West 65th Street. Bohemian brewer Wenzel Medlin founded the company in 1892. The company is best remembered for its P.O.C. beer, which stood not for "Pride of Cleveland" (as some mistakenly believe today) but "Pilsner of Cleveland." Pittsburgh-based Duquense Brewing Company bought Pilsner Brewing in 1963, however, and P.O.C. (which then became short for "Pleasure on Call") was brewed in Pittsburgh until Duquense itself went bankrupt ten years later. At that point, C. Schmidt & Sons purchased their brand names, and the P.O.C. was once again brewed in Cleveland until 1984.

 

That write-up must have been created just to straighten me out.

 

That makes it official - I'm right.

 

Like Willie Wonka's golden ticket?

 

Found a couple of Swedish ads from circa 1985 which I thought were interesting in showing an attempt to market and sell Schlitz in Sweden. The ads focus on how Schlitz is as old as the old west/wild west. The beer that is being advertised is "Class I" meaning no more than 1.8% abw/2.25% abv, one of two classes of beer sold in grocery stores at the time (the other, Class II, being maximum 2.8% abw/3.5% abv). The fine print at the bottom says that it is brewed and bottled in the USA, so not brewed under license, and is being test-sold in grocery stores. I imagine a Class II version was also brewed and sold at the time. I know that at least by 1989 a full strenght version was being sold through the government liquor stores.

 

Cool. I guess they were somewhat successful after all. I'm wondering which other American brands they would have been up against, I've seen a picture of a can of Budweiser with 2.8% abw listed which looked to be from the 80s (the full strenght version wouldn't be sold here until the 1990s afaik).

I'm reminded here of a statement by George M Shaw of Schlitz's international division from 1960 where he stated about Sweden that [the] "state monopoly refuses to buy U.S. beer.". The monopoly wasn't big on variety and freedom of choice at that time (that came later in the 90s and 00s), and perhaps unfavorable exchange rates had something to do with it as well. Of course there was also a 20% (maximum) adjunct cap in place in Sweden at that time, a rule most American brands would fall foul of at the time. But who knows what the reason was (simply protectionism?).

 

Yeah, Stroh probably didn't have to sell much Schlitz in Sweden to be the No. 1 brand there - US exports to most countries, especially ones with some brewing history of their own, were tiny in that period. (Well, probably still are.)

In 1986 total US beer exports were a mere 561k bbl., with a rough breakdown of regions looking like this:

Asia - 40%
Canada - 27%*
Caribbean - 15%
Europe - 7% (#1 - England then #2 Sweden)
Australia 6%
Central & South America - 5%

Funny, because if you think about it, the two biggest historical US brands' labels both had "international" images on them.


* Damn, the year before, 1985, Canada share of the Total US exports of beer was about 2/3's - 62.7%, or more than 3 times the amount of beer they brought in the year before or after. I'd guess there might have been a brewery workers strike in Canada?

 

Yup.
Remember the beer strike of 1985?