Yellow text outlined in black and red script text on a white background. Black and yellow illustration of the Olympia horseshoe logo.

The Olympia Brewing Company was a brewery firm in Tumwater, Washington, USA which existed from 1896 until 1983. It was acquired in the latter year by what would eventually become Pabst Brewing Company. Olympia Beer was a very popular regional brand in the Pacific Northwest. It eventually expanded nationwide, repositioned as a low-price lager. During the 1970s, Olympia acquired Hamm's and Lone Star. Olympia Brewing also produced Buckhorn Beer, which had previously been a product of the Lone Star Brewing Company. For many years, Olympia Beer was brewed with water obtained from artesian wells. The company's promotions made much of the use of artesian water in the brewing process. However, the advertisements never explained what artesian water was, preferring to claim that the water was controlled by a mythical population of "Artesians".

Faded red text and black text on an orange background. A black circle outline with a black money bag outline.

Monarch Brewing was founded in 1890 as the Josef Hladovec Brewing Company in Chicago.  It was purchased and renamed by I. Baumgartl and Charles Stein as the Monarch Brewing Company in 1892 and later merged with the United Breweries Company in 1898.  They stayed in operation through the prohibition years making soda and near beer but were suspected of making underground real beer, a common rumor for every brewery in the city.  After prohibition was repealed they struggled with competition from larger companies and the Great Depression.  They turned to television advertising in the late 40’s and switched to conetops and flat tops for their cheaper brands like Bullfrog.  In 1958 Monarch was sold to former Al Capone Lieutenant Joseph Fusco and renamed Van Merritt Brewing.  It stayed at the old plant with the new name until it closed in 1967.

See more photos of pre- and post-prohibition beer buttons on the Busy Beaver blog.

Illustration of the Bud Man in a red superhero outfit with a red mask, blue cape, and blue gloves driving a red and white U-12 Miss Budweiser hydroplane, on a white background with blue and red text.

Budweiser is a pale lager produced by Anheuser–Busch InBev. Introduced in 1876 by Adolphus Busch from Saint Louis, MO it has grown to become one of the highest selling beers in the United States, and is available in over 80 markets worldwide.

The Miss Budweiser were 22 hydroplanes sponsored by Budweiser beer. They were owned by Bernie Little and his youngest son, Joe. Anheuser-Busch sponsorship began in 1963, thanks to the friendship of Bernie, and Anheuser-Busch President August Busch, III. Joe stopped racing after the 2004 season, when changes in Anheuser-Busch leadership resulted in them ending their 43 years of sponsorship.

White text with a sandwich cut in half and a can of beer in the middle with a black background

Miller High Life started being manufactured in 1903 and is Miller's oldest brand. One of the most popular Miller High Life advertising slogans was "Miller Time". Miller High Life is known for its elongated bottles and "Girl on the Moon" logo.

Black and red text on a yellow bubble with a beer bottle and glass full of beer on ice on a black background.

Metbrau was a non-alcoholic brew produced by Metropolis Brewery of New Jersey, which was a company of Iroquois Brands. Iroquois Brewery was founded in 1842, and it remained open during Prohibition by brewing soda and “near beer”, one of those being Metbrau. The “all natural  draft non alcoholic malt beverage” gained new popularity during the mid-1980s fitness craze, and by 1987, Metbrau was ranked #1 in sales of non-alcoholic beers. By the 1990s, however, Iroquois Brands and its subsidiaries had been sold and most of them closed, including Metbrau’s producer. 

Brown text on a yellow background, white text on a brown rectangle, white text on a dark yellow rectangle, with an illustration of a brown ram's head.

Jacob Ruppert, Jr., was an American brewer, businessman, National Guard colonel, and United States Congressman who served for four terms representing New York from 1899 to 1907. He also owned the New York Yankees of Major League Baseball from 1915 until his death in 1939. Although Ruppert had owned the Yankees, Knickerbocker Beer - made by the Ruppert Brewery - was the official beer of the New York Giants.

Black and white image of football players and a referee, with red text and black text on a white background.

In 1861, a young German immigrant, Edward Frauenheim, started the Iron City Brewery, one of the first American breweries to produce a lager, in the river port known at the time as the "Smoky City." This founder of Frauenheim, Miller & Company started brewing Iron City Beer, now the flagship of the Iron City Brewing Company. In 1899, the Iron City Brewery was one of 12 local breweries to transfer their license to the Pittsburg Brewing Company. By 1977, Pittsburgh Brewing Company was one of just 40 breweries left in the country. To rebound from difficult years, the brewery introduced a new light beer, branded as Iron City Light—or IC Light. IC Light’s popularity also heightened the sales of regular Iron City beer, as it soon regained the position of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s favorite beer.

Yellow and red shield shape, with black text on yellow and red old fashioned text on red.

The G. Heileman Brewing Company of La Crosse, Wisconsin, USA, operated from1858 to 1996. It was ultimately acquired by Stroh's, and its independent existence ceased. From 1872 until its acquisition, the brewery bore the family name of its co-founder, brewer Gottlieb Heileman. The G. Heileman Brewing Company declared bankruptcy in January 1991 and sought salvation with an aggressive push into the malt liquor market. In a controversial move, they developed a new brand of malt liquor calledPower Master. "Power Master" brand of malt liquor was brewed with an alcohol by volume of 7.4%, significantly higher than existing malt liquor brands. Protestors cited Heileman's distribution and advertising strategies as evidence that the company was targeting the high-alcohol beverage toward urban African-Americans, especially in Chicago, one of Heileman's core markets. A threatened boycott was organized against one of Heileman's established malt liquor brands, Colt 45 which at the time had an alcohol percentage of 5.6%. The Colt 45 boycott was called off when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives succeeded, in July 1991, in persuading Heileman to pull the "Power Master" brand from the market.

Illustration of a variety of woodland creatures carrying the Hamm's Bear along a path in the forest with a lake in the background. White and red text.

The Theodore Hamm Brewing Company was established in 1865 when Theodore Hamm, a German immigrant, inherited the Excelsior Brewery from his friend and business associate, A. F. Keller in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Hamm's bear was incorporated into the first campaign produced by the Campbell Mithun advertising agency, which sought to emphasize the supposedly superior cleanliness and naturalness of Hamm's beer owing to its clear water and production in pristine Minnesota, the "enchanted Northland". The first television commercial depicted animated beavers beating their tails to the tom-tom beat of the jingle, as well as live action shots of the forests and lakes of the "enchanted Northland". The second, produced in 1952, introduced the clumsy dancing black-and-white cartoon "Beer Bear", actually named "Sascha", which proved so popular it was used for the next three decades. The "Beer Bear" and other woodland creatures were seen many afternoons as Hamm's was the beer sponsor of the Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, and Minnesota Twins in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Black text on a yellow background

The "Golden Six" refers to an advertisement which touts six different foods with which the Miller High Life brand can be paired. The six ways that Miller advertised how the Beer can be enjoyed are: with steak, cheese, sandwiches, hot dogs, chips, and chicken. Another variation of the "Golden Six" advertisement simply refers to taking home a six pack of Miller High Life Beer.