One good thing macrobrewers have done with their monstrous marketing budgets is create some very memorable and enjoyable advertising.  But over the years, the ads haven’t been quite as slick.  We pulled together 15 retro beer advertisements into this gallery to take a look back on what used to be.

Everyone’s favorite week is coming up.  Mark your calendars — the Brewer’s Association has deemed May 14-20 as American Craft Beer Week.  So take the next few weeks and draw up a plan.  Most cities have great events, bars have unique beer specials, and there’s all sorts of celebrating to be done with your favorite six pack in your living room.

Ask Men writer Patrick Smith, in what I’m convinced is some sort of link-bait fake controversy, has called out those who like craft beer.  After all, he knows you would much rather have a Bud Light instead of a “Magic such-and-such.”  How does he know?  Because that’s what he wants, of course!

Today, you can buy high-end beers that have, like, 6-7%  alcohol and taste like turpentine. That used to be called Schlitz Malt Liquor. But at least The Bull was cold. At my neighborhood’s liquor store, strolling past row after row of lukewarm emetics with cutie-pie labels, it dawned on me: I love beer, but I hate these beers.

And so do you. You can deny it all you want, but I’ll never believe you wouldn’t rather shoot pool with a couple of Pabst Blue Ribbons than with a cedar-spiced holiday ale.

My friends think I’m the one who’s nuts. They’ll drink an India pale ale from Portland, then a weissen with notes of clove, followed by… on and on. I’m missing out, they’ll tell me. They call me a beer square.

I’ll give him the point he’s trying to make — though like a whiny baby — and simply say: good for him.  He should drink whatever he wants to drink, even if it’s just PBR until he’s blind.  But the way he makes his point, by denouncing selection and at least some attention to detail and craft while brewing, is simply ignorant.

As we’ve said before and will say again right now: craft beer should absolutely not become wine.  It shouldn’t become a place for snobbishness, exclusivity, or elitism.  As I type this, I’m drinking a Yuengling.  I picked it over bottles of Bell’s Hopslam and Troges Nugget Nectar, to say nothing of a dozen other beers, including homebrews.  Why?  Because it’s what I wanted — something simple and light while I typed.

And that’s the point.  Plenty of those who like — and even those who brew — the fancy beers he denounces enjoy the occasional American light lager.  That’s ok.  What’s not ok is holding it against them when they step outside of the marketing and brainwashing that led the American beer industry into a mass-produced, disgusting haze.

You know what goes well with extreme physical exertion? Just like any other situation, the answer is beer. To that end, Sam Adams is developing the perfect product for the 2012 Boston Marathon.

In Boston today, The Boston Beer Co. will release “Sam Adams Boston 26.2 Brew.” From The Boston Globe:

The Boston Beer Co., best known for its Samuel Adams line of craft brews, said it is preparing a special commemorative beer to mark the 2012 Boston Marathon.

The company is planning to unveil “Samuel Adams Boston 26.2 Brew” at a news conference scheduled for Thursday at the Samuel Adams Brewery. At the conference, Boston Beer is expected to formally announce its first-ever partnership with the Boston Athletic Association, which manages the Boston Marathon.

The association’s Joann Flaminio and marathon veteran Bill Rodgers are expected to join Boston Beer founder Jim Koch at the event.

A quick bit of Googling tells us that a 150 pound runner will burn 100 calories per mile during a marathon, or roughly 2600 total calories. If the new Sam Adams marathon beer comes in at 160 calories per bottle, which is how many calories Sam Adams Boston Lager has, you’d be free to chug 16.25 beers, run the marathon, and not gain a pound.

Runners high, 16 beers, and no beer belly? Why not? It’s already been reported that non-alcoholic beer speeds marathon recovery.

From Slow Boat Brewing

Beijing, China has two craft breweries, but demand far outpaces supply. Between the already-established Great Leap Brewing, and the upstart Slow Boat Brewery, Beijing residents can’t get enough.

From the Wall Street Journal:

With the recent opening of Slow Boat Brewery in Beijing, the city’s number of American-style microbreweries officially doubled — to two. But according to both brewers, there’s a growing and largely untapped market in China’s capital as disposable income rises and beer-swilling residents clamor for more variety at the pub.

Late last year, Slow Boat held an evening tasting of its beers, whose flavor resembles brews of the U.S. Pacific Northwest such as Sierra Nevada. The beer ran out in just 45 minutes, despite the brewery quadrupling its offerings to four kegs from a prior event.

“It was a little embarrassing,” said the brewery’s chief executive Chandler Jurinka, though he added that it was also an encouraging sign of demand.

The debate about ingredients between the two is fascinating, given that I’m personally working on a tea-based Pale Ale recipe myself:

Great Leap and Slow Boat take differing approaches when it comes to ingredients. Slow Boat uses nearly all imports, including malt, hops and yeast, because it’s “comforting for local Chinese to know the ingredients aren’t Chinese, because of all the food scandals,” Mr. Jurinka said.

By contrast, Great Leap uses local hops and highlights a range of Chinese ingredients, from Sichuan peppercorns and Yunnan coffee beans to organic honey from Shandong province and a variety of teas. ”You don’t have to import quality,” Mr. Setzer said. “You can have good-quality things that are made in China, using existing ingredients.”

One Iowa man has decided to bravely go where few have gone before: he’s given up all food for lent, and replaced it with beer.  But while outrageous, it’s not as crazy as it may seem at first.

Hold your giggles. You may assume that this is a high-falutin’ excuse to stay schnookered for a month and a half, but that’s not the case. We think. Wilson calls this a “historical study,” an attempt to live like a seventeenth-century monk. To sustain themselves during Lent, monks subsisted on a high-calorie, carbohydrate-crammed beer dubbed a doppelbock.

To sustain himself, Wilson, a veteran homebrewer, teamed up with the folks at the local Rock Bottom brewpub to create the Illuminator Doppelbock. It packs a hefty 288 calories per 12-ounce dose and a potent 6.67 percent ABV.

I’ve referred to many beers as “bread in a glass” simply because they seemed substantial enough to serve as a meal.  But for as much as I love beer, I wouldn’t want t0 do it for over a month.

From flickr user duane.schoon

The American Dietetic Association, which claims to be the “world’s largest organization of food and nutrition professionals,” is out promoting the health benefits of good beer.

While red wine is often touted as the heart-healthy libation, more evidence is showing beer has a great deal of nutrition and health-promoting qualities as well, according to an article published in the Winter 2011 issue of the American Dietetic Association’s member publication, ADA Times.

“Red wine enjoys a reputation for sophistication and health benefits, but as interest in artisan brewing gains momentum and emerging research reveals unique nutrition properties, beer is finding redemption not only as a classy libation with deep roots in many cultures, but as a beverage with benefits,” writes registered dietitian and ADA Spokesperson Andrea Giancoli.

Sure, you may get a bit of a beer gut if you over-do it, but there are clear health benefits to moderate beer drinking.  So be sure to drink one or two each — for your health.

From The White House

We wrote Friday about the White House’s choice of craft beer for President Obama’s Super Bowl party.  As it turns out, there was more than just craft beer on the menu — there was also a homebrew, an unknown style of ale brewed with White House honey.

According to ABC News..

Listed along with Hinterland Pale Ale & Amber Ale from Wisconsin and Yuengling Lager and Light from Pennsylvania was Honey Ale…from the White House.

The First Lady’s office confirms that the White House chefs made one batch of beer using about a pound of honey from the First Lady’s honey hive, on the South Lawn of the White House.

The chefs used the traditional methods to brew the beer, and the First Lady’s office confirms that the Obamas paid for the equipment.

The batch was made so that the nearly 200 Super Bowl guests – from members of Congress to celebrities like J-Lo — could sample the new beer.

I would absolutely love to see the White House homebrew setup.  Is it full grain, partial mash, or extract?  5 gallon batches?  What kind of gadgets does it include — immersion or counter-flow chiller, temperature controllers?  Which chef also serves as the official White House brewer?  Whatever the case, homebrewing has come a long way since Jimmy Carter got things started in 1979.

From flickr user Seansie

Hinterland Brewery from Green Bay, Wisconsin is the lucky guest at this Sunday’s White House Super Bowl party.  The small brewery recently learned that two of their beers are going to be served at the presidential event.

President Barack Obama’s party will include beer from Hinterland Brewery in Green Bay . Several cases of pale ale and amber ale have been shipped to Washington in time for the big game.

Hinterland owner Bill Tressler calls the opportunity “real cool.” He says it’ll be nice to get some feedback — hopefully positive.

Head brewer Joe Karls says it’s exciting to brew beer for a president. He and Tressler say the honor is a feather in their cap.

Really great to see Presidential recognition of good beer.

From flickr user ebatty

When we last wrote about Colorado’s new governor-elect, John Hickenlooper, we noted that he was also a known craft brewer and founder of the Denver-area Wynkoop brewery.  At the time, Wynkoop was debating on what type of beer to brew in honor of the new governor.

Well, they got brewing, and with Hickenlooper’s swearing in taking place tomorrow, and the long list of inaugural festivities that go along with it, Wynkoop has tapped a unique brown ale/winter warmer — Inaugurale.

Hickenlooper’s Inaugurale is a cross between a hearty brown ale and a winter warmer. Neither too malty nor too hoppy, the beer is a reach-across-the-aisle creation perfect for the current political climate in Colorado and the US. It is about 6.8 % ABV.

The beer is made with all Colorado-grown base malts and a wealth of specialty grains. These grains include golden naked oats, honey malt, crystal malt and black patent and chocolate malt. These grains give the beer extra layers of body and flavors of toasted and roasted malt, caramel and nuts.

The beer gets extra heft and complexity from an addition of Colorado beet sugar. The sugar doubles as recognition that no one in Colorado could beat John in the election. (Ba dump bump.)

Not content with just having a special inaugural beer celebrating their old boss, Wynkoop has decided to make a delivery to the official inaugural event via horse and carriage.

Not only is the Wynkoop Brewing Company making a special beer to commemorate brewery co-founder John Hickenlooper’s gubernatorial inauguration party on Tuesday, it will deliver that beer, Hickelooper’s Inaugurale, via horse and carriage.

The party, which is being held at the Fillmore auditorium, will feature beers from the Wynkoop and sixteen other Colorado craft brewers (for the entire list, look below), as well as Rock Bottom, Anheuser-Busch and MillerCoors.

We’re looking for great things from a governor with the sense to brew good beer.

(And sorry for the longer-than-expected break. It was a slow beer news week, we’ve been hard at work on a major new part of the site, and we were too busy watching college football while we still could. But we’re back, and we’ll have a couple of exciting new announcements over the next month or so, in part because we took some time off. )