Diorama Question: Most popular beer in WWII ??

Probably anything other than what the U.S. government was sending them, as that was all 3.2% alcohol. ;-) Seriously, both my dad and former barber served in WW II, and the troops were far more likely to drink something local at full strength, rather than the 3.2 military issue, unless they were in desperate straits. About the only ground troops who had a hard time getting beer other than the government supplied stuff were the troops out on the Pacific Islands, and they were very eager to figure out ways to get supplies from Hawaii, Australia, or New Zealand. Now this is a clever beer ad:

's there website: Pat

If you can get hold of Spitfire Ale, I thoroughly recommend it. It is excellent, although the quality has dropped slightly in the past few years. All Shepherd-Neame beers used to be bottle conditioned. Any real ale drinker will tell you that bottle conditioning leaves lees in the bottom of the bottle, but that this is entirely normal. You just have to be careful about how you pour the beer. Sadly, many supermarkets were receiving complaints about the "contamination" in the bottles and were returning whole consignments of beer that had absolutely nothing wrong with it. S-N and a lot of other breweries have decided to stop producing bottle-conditioned beers as a result.

on 9/11/2007 12:42 AM snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net said the following:

I lived in NYC during WWII. I was too young to drink beer, but my father wasn't. I remember a few of the NY sold beers at the time. Ballentine, Rheingold, Pabst Blue Ribbon, and Carlings Red Cap. There may have been others, but I don't remember them. I believe Ballentine and Rheingold were NY beers, so they probably were sent overseas to the troops. Ballentine was a radio sponsor of the NY Yankees, and home runs were called Ballentine Blasts. Before they had major league All Star games, Ballentine used to have cards for fans vote for their all-stars, even if no game was played. Rheingold had a beauty contest to vote for the Miss Rheingold title. The Rheingold jingle was "My beer is Rheingold the dry beer. Think of Rheingold whenever you buy beer. It's not bitter, not sweet, it's the extra dry treat Won't you try extra dry Rheingold beer?"

Pabst Blue Ribbon was a popular beer back in WW2. Although during World War II all cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon were painted a military green and were exclusively made for the troops because of tin rationing. I would think that if a soilder was to paint a beer logo on the side of a water tank he might paint a Pabst logo.

Wow that brings back memories. Do they still make PBR anymore ? I remember the comercials when I was a kid and seeing it at picnics and in the stores.

Chris

"Take a ring, and then another ring, and another ring, and then you have three rings." Was Ballantine Ale's jingle, and I assume the brand was very popular over in Rivendell and Lothlorien. Stuff on beer and ballparks here:

Pat

What little data I could find on WWII beer production implied that Anheuser-Busch and Miller breweries were the major suppliers of it to the government.

Oh yes! It's just about North Dakota's state beer, they simple refer to it as PBR up here it's so well known.

Pat

My memories are somewhat newer. I can still sing the Ballantine's jingle from the '50s. "Hey! get your cold beer! Hey! Get your Ballantine's!" I also can recall Carling Black Label commercials with the pretty barmaid named Mabel. Then there was Bob & Ray doing the voices of Bert and Harry Piel in the animated Piel's commercials. We still have a heavy-duty 'church key' in the utensil drawer with Stegmaier's name on it. AFAIK, they're long gone but I did get a picture of the rather elegant Stegmaier Stable building in Wilkes-Barre a few years back. It was being used as a warehouse at that time. IIRC, my Uncle Walter had a big Stegmaier Stag sign behind the bar in his basement back in the '60s. Pabst used to sponsor Saturday late movies on WCAU, Phila. back in the '60s. Funny how I can remember all this when I was never a beer drinker. Then again, maybe that IS why. ;)

Bill Banaszak, MFE Sr.

Beer, Baseball, and Hot Dogs...if that wasn't the Spirit Of America's Golden Age, nothing was. Here's Bert and Harry at the Hockey Game:

never drank a Piel's. I don't know if it was ever distributed this far west. "From the land of sky-blue water... Comes the beer so refreshing... Hamm's, the beer refreshing. Hamms." The Hamm's Beer Bear: a guess what I'm drinking a can of at the moment? And it's so refreshing. Actually, it's so cheap, but that's refreshing in its own right I guess. :-)

Pat

Not Genessee beer? That was the local cheap beer when I was growing up. Genny was what it was usually called. Don't recall their jingle though.

Miller's I remember.."Miller, is the, one beer to have, when you're having more than one!"

The Heinz and Freinz were the two talking beer steins for selling Schlitz, Ithink.

-- Stephen

Schlitz at the disco, 1979:

you'd think most of them would be having coke. Schlitz Malt Liqueur gets it funky soul moves going: Colt 45 ices the bull: it, brother. :-)

Pat

Schlitz at the disco, 1979:

you'd think most of them would be having coke. Schlitz Malt Liqueur gets it funky soul moves going: Colt 45 ices the bull: you would probably not see a commercial concept like this one: and alcohol don't mix, Mr. Cannon. Even if the hood is infested with calves. Bulls are one thing; calves quite another. :-)

Pat

It's probably because the beer commercials were geared towards males, in general. Other than those, the others were soap commercials, more geared towards the homemakers.

on 9/12/2007 4:00 AM Stephen Tontoni said the following:

No Genesee that I could remember in NYC, or even in Rockland Co.NY, from

1951 to 1984. It wasn't until late1984, when I moved to Orange Co, NY, that I even saw it in a store. The locals called it 'Genny' (Jenny). I liked the Cream Ale. Googling it, I didn't realize how widespread it is, or how old the company was, nor that it made the Seagram's Coolers. And for the Kiwis and Ozzies in this group, it is the sole US distributer of Steinlager and Toohey's New.

don't forget old frothingltosh, the pale, stale ale with the foam on the bottom!

Kinda lived down to its name, tasted like old potato peals.

Genny Cream Ale, the cheap drunk of choice amonst the local High School crowd back in the early 1960s. Actually it wasn't too bad. Then in about 1990 they changed the receipe, added sugar and made it too sweet. 8-P

Schultz and Dooley were two talking steins for Utica Club (upstate New York near Syracuse)

my grandfather brewed yusay pilsner in chicago until 1970 when they were bough out by one of the mega blands. they had the best ginger ale.(almost all brewery's had their own line of soft drinks.) yusay cola was mediocore.

Another beer dorama idea - according to one of the TV specials about the battle for Guadalcanal - the Marines captured a warehouse with a large stock of Japanese beer. It was really terrible tasting - but did have a decent alcohol content. When the translators showed up they informed the guys they were drinking Mosquito repellant - most likely a mixture of alcohol, vinegar and assorted spices - there are still recipes like this for environmentally friendly repellants today. Picture one guy reading the label as other guys holding half filled bottles are either looking disgusted or spitting the out last mouthful. Tittle is Mosquito Repellant!

Val Kraut

"

Sounds like the dread "Fox Deluxe" from Minnesota. Somewhere around here.... (sound of Pat rummaging through desk drawer) AH-HA! The distressed Gentlefolk's Wine Appreciation And Free-Thought Society's listing of the hundreds of different beers we drank back in the 80's and

90's, graded on a 1-to-10 scale. Where is it? There it is. Yes, the Radeberger Pilsner Luxus Klasse beer from East Germany! Our rating: "4", our pithy remark: "Commie beer taste." ...and the Leinenkugel Bock! Our rating: 7.75, our pithy remark: "Tastes like pussy." And it did. They had a great marketing opportunity there for Lesbian bars, but they missed it. The ads would have really been something to see. "Crack open our bocks sometime girls!" :-)

Pat