The Past is a Foreign Country

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There used to be a time when beer was viewed and revered as a valuable source of nourishing vitamins and minerals. The health giving properties of beer were promoted and positively emphasised in the adverts of the time and it wasn't uncommon to see mother and baby enjoying an imbibication or nursey dispensing beer as a medicinal tonic for the convalescing infirm. As the adverts below show, beer was the tincture to cure most ills.

Beer for baby and essential to give mummy a healthy glow and keep her breasts perky instead of an anaemic and listless Kathy Burke looky likey.

An alcoholic Werthers Originals moment to help you 'Cultivate the Rainier Beer habit' with the Grandchildren. Beer for the young and not so young.

Beer for the infirm. Usually dispensed by nurse or matron to reinforce it's health giving and restorative properties.

Beer to immunise against the health privations of a cruel British winter.

Beer as a regular source of nutrition for 'invalids'.


However, the past is a foreign country and the perception of beer as a pick-me-up and a source of healthy goodness has gone and been replaced by 'public information campaigns' like the one below designed to instill guilt and self loathing in the minds of those that like a beer.


Drinking Beer makes your glass bigger

There's a charming naivete and endearing innocence about those beer adverts from times past. Try 'cultivating a beer habit' with your 10 year old granddaughter these days and the chances of you getting a visit from the Social Work department and your face in the local paper would be, I imagine, very high. Which is probably just as well.

These adverts speak of a different time.

A time before the Portman Group, the Advertising Standards Agency, Trading Standards and a powerful health lobby existed. 

Beer is still good for you. It hasn't changed. Drinking beer in moderate quantities can be beneficial to your health.

Just don't give it to the grandchildren.

Tell them to get their own.

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