Your Monday Morning Mental Sorbet: Fun With Vintage Beer Ads

Was talking this weekend about the legacy of the Mental Sorbet, the feature in which we try to give you something odd, wonderful or both to kick start your work week. I was told by my drinking buddy Big Dub that he missed the feature. We haven't been doing them just because of time restrictions and, though we enjoyed them, they just didn't spawn a lot of traffic. So if you enjoy these, throw some traffic this way and maybe we can bring it back semi-regularly. Regardless, this week it's dedicated to mad alcohol alchemist Big Dub. Enjoy.

Given that as a launching spot, it seemed like a no-brainer to explore some fine examples of vintage beer commercials. The most obvious example is Fred and Barney shilling for Busch beer...but we've already posted that. So we had to get slightly more creative. Slightly.

We begin with this: how do you know you're pretty damn lazy? When the selling point for you is that the beer has a handy dandy handle. I guess portability technology was new back in 1960.

Next we move on to the Hamm's Beer Bear whose use was discontinued based on fears that people would think they were marketing beer to kids. So nobody gave a shit whether or not they were trying to get bears to drink, huh? Who speaks for the bears in this scenario?

And last but not least, here we have Rheingold beer marching through a city to celebrate...well, beer. Either that or they've invaded, conquered the city and this is their parade through the center of the metropolis to demonstrate their might for the beleaguered citizens of that occupied area. Paradise or dystopia...you must judge for yourselves. See you next week--maybe.