Grain Belt Heaven
Here is shall try to tell you how it was "in the old days" in the beer business. It has changed a lot!
Will Faust’s career in beer!
Includes Olympia Beer entering the state of Minnesota in 1974, Faust Beverage Company:
My Dad came here in 1955 from Des Moines, IA, where he was a Grain Belt (GB) Beer distributor there. He and his brother went in to business there in 1948, but it was a long way from the local brewery and the brand did not do well. From Dad’s book:
My brother George was offered a distributorship with Grain Belt Beer in Des Moines, Iowa [1948]. We had often talked about someday going into business together and he asked me if I would go with him. We both sold our homes in Minneapolis and used that money to buy trucks and get started in business. After a few years [1.5] George was offered the job of General Sales Manager of Hamm's Brewing Co. so he moved back to Minneapolis. I stayed on in Des Moines for a total of 8 years and lost $25,000.00. It was a tough market for anything but a national brand. I got a call from the brewery asking if I would like to move to Brainerd, Minnesota.
In those days your brewery would extend you credit, and Dad appreciated it almost too much. When Dad got to Brainerd in 1955, the town had NO Grain Belt on tap. He asked the former distributor what would be the top accounts to crack. Unlike now when there are dozens of beers on tap, then the bar was either a GB, Hamm’s, or Schmidt account. Everything else was sold in bottles, and if you were really thirsty you’d get a quart. Tap beer was for the working man…a budget brew, 3 for a buck. That first year Dad got GB tap in the top 3 accounts…Eddie’s Arrow, Hofner’s Tavern and the Happy Hour Bar. Grain Belt really took off here about 1966, after some lean years. There was one year when tap beer was such the in thing, I set up over 100 draft lines. Anybody with an old refrigerator laying around wanted tap beer.
It made delivery a nightmare as most small beer joints had no walk-in cooler for a spare. By 1970 we had the lion’s share of the tap and bottle market; I believe the biggest share of one single brand in the state, something like 60%. This has not been topped ever since. Dad used to say that in an average bar, there would be say 10 GB Premiums, 8 GB darks (Golden), 2 Schmidt’s, a Hamm’s, and one token Bud or Schlitz. Those last two were likely some tourist from Illinois, and didn’t know any better. About 1969 Hamm’s was bought out by Hublien, a liquor company. They came up with a flavored beer called Right Time. Irt came in a fancy bottle in every flavor imaginable like raspberry and grape. It went over so well that we thought for sure nobody would drink regular beer ever again. I remember at parties only us GB guys were drinking real beer. All the women were hooked on Right Time. That lasted about 8 months, then it was no longer to found. Flavored beer did not come back until the 2000’s with the likes of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, Smirnoff and Jack Daniels. All of these pretend to be not a beer. Kids think they are getting really drunk, thinking the Smirnoff has vodka in it, or bourbon in the Jack, but if you look REAL closely, you will find “Flavored Beer” hidden on the label. About this time too came the malt liquor era. Dad even took on County Club Malt Liquor. Schmidt had Mickey’s, Schlitz had their own, and GB came up with GBX. This was yet another fad, the stuff was awful, had too much alcohol in it to be drinkable, and petered out in a year here.
About then the handwriting was on the wall with the national beers moving in and underpricing the local beers. Most of Dad’s fellow distributors were taking on the big ones and were buying out other dealers. Dad said he could not do that to the brewery who put him up in business all those years and helped him raise his family of 5. He could have had Miller here for the price of 3 crummy trucks and a one week’s supply of beer, but he declined. By 1974 he was contacted by Olympia Brewing Co. I had never heard of it, but was aware of the huge popularity of Coors in the western states. We used to go west with 6 cases of GB and bootleg back the same in Coors, making money on both ends! The brewery interviewed all 3 distributors here, the Schmidt/Bud, Pabst/Fitger’s and the Hamm’s dealers. Only the former had and adequate warehouse besides us, but the connection was not made with the folks there. Dad got the brand.
We had to “climatize” our warehouse, a term we had never heard, so insulated, heated and ventilated the back room addition. We added on to the south of the building with an enclosed ramp to a place to park another semi. I think this was done hurriedly after we already had the brand, not sure. Or, it may be what Oly required. They flew Dad and I out for a welcome dinner and tour, and training. Dad made me buy a suit…and a bathrobe! Still have the bathrobe. We were able to take on a small area to the south that was in never-never land between wholesalers’ areas. The best of this area was Camp Ripley, where years ago Dad used to train during the war. I went out and solicited for new customers, telling them something REALLY big was on the way. Nobody had ever heard of Oly, but the beer palate was changing towards a lighter brew like Oly & Coors, and this was the next best thing to getting Coors. Oly flooded the market ahead of the beer with advertising. We got more of those oval neons that first year than we ever got from GB in 5 years combined. There was a black light cash register sign that NObody had ever seen the likes of, and they went to only our best accounts. The plastic animal series was reserved for TAP accounts only, and came out 2 at time. The next 2 were promised if the bar kept the tap line on. Collectors were always after them so I used to drill a hole under the shelf and screw them to the back bar. We never put one beyond the security of the back bar!
The brewery’s recycling program was a first in town and also quite a challenge. We had to buy a scale and I had to sit there all Saturday morning weighing grubby old cans full of flies, bag them, and make the cash pay outs. We certainly made no profit on this!
At one point the beer was selling so fast that when there were troops from Illinois at Camp Ripley, we never even brought the stuff to the warehouse. It came right off the rail line downtown, on to the truck and to the camp. We were not palletized yet, so had to put a pallet in the back of the truck, aim between the wheel wells, and shove it in with an empty pallet, then 2, then adding 2 more pallets for 3 total. When a new batch of Illinois boys would come in, it was pallet run all over again, sometimes 2 in one week. We used to order based on the Camp’s schedule. I don’t recall if we brought in the Little Oly at the start, but when they hit we simply could not keep them on the shelf. Nobody had heard of a 7 oz. can. Women especially dug them. I was used to 90% of the kids at a house party drinking GB, and now it was running 50% Oly…my brand, but hard for me nonetheless. Everything in our warehouse was splitting at the seams, even the trucks. Oly was in the national expansion mode as were mostly small brewers, like GB with Storz, but that was a flop. They needed to beat Coors to here. They took on Hamm’s, and we got that brand, not the other way around. There were hard feelings there, but the brand was a non -factor by then sales-wise. This is where we could have gotten Miller for a song! The switch to palletized trucks would be monumentally expensive, and in 1976 GB had gotten bought out by Heileman of La Crosse. More handwriting, and Dad was 62, so he decided to bail out while he still had something to sell. The business went to that Schmidt/Bud guy mentioned earlier, and the warehouse went to a car dealer for a body shop. That left me, who was always going to buy the business so never went to college…working with the Bud boys, and that did not go well. We were bitter enemies all those years, and that made it impossible to stay, so in a year I went to Frito Lay for 30 more. Had Dad taken on Miller I’d have retired at more like 52, but I did make it like Dad did at 62, or at least in semi-retirement.
Dad so deserved the GB and Oly boom days after his rough 8 years in Des Moines. And how fun for a 23 year- old too, to have the top brands going for nearly a decade. I had a lot of buddies. Oly was said to be the biggest introduction of a new brand in to any state before or since. It took 3 months that first summer just to get the stuff to stay on a shelf. Some of those animal plaques are still screwed to back bars! Sales pooped out faster than they pooped in, and later on we wound up going out and picking up outdated beer. The national s had their way. GB had some bumps, going first to liquidator Irwin Jacobs who parceled out the brewery. A local group bought the brand and brewed it in, of all places, the Schmidt plant! It nearly went extinct until the second oldest family beer in the country, Schell’s, bought it, and brought the old formula back. It’s nice to see the brand healthy again, and it is Schell’s #1 brand now. Dad would be proud.
In my beer-drinking time here on earth I have seen it come pretty much full circle. Flavored beer, malt liquor, light beer, and now dark beer, just like we had in about 1850! In 1970 the only dark beer was GB Dark, and GB Bock in the spring. Of course there were a few “imports” like Becks and Guinness. Now I can go to almost any good tavern or supper club and find a dozen good darks, ales or IPA’s, and most are brewed right here in the USA…some even in MN, and lately some right here in town! We now/2016 have one in Baxter, 2 in Nisswa, and one coming in Brainerd. Why buy an import??? Eat local honey, vegetable oil, produce and veggies, and drink local BEER!
Beer Days:
By Carl W. Faust
Here are the recollections I have of my career in the beer business, back in the late 1960’s, early 70’s. My Dad, Will Faust, was a Grain Belt beer distributor in Brainerd, MN. He came here in 1955 after, as Dad told the story, he and his brother George “lost their shirts” in the beer business in Des Moines, IA.
As I recall, all of us 4 brothers worked for Dad as soon as we could push a broom, or lift a case of beer. So I imagine that when we were about 13 we’d come in on Saturdays to sweep. Dad was the only beer guy in town that was open on Sat. morning. Most of our calls came in at 10 minutes to 12. After the sweeping thing, we learned the Breakage Pile as it was called. This was between the first and second truck of 3, and was on a 4’ wide wooden dock. We used this dock to load in to the side doors sometimes. There was always a lot of breakage on this pile, and we had the job of cleaning every can and bottle of dirt and broken glass shards, and re-ringing six packs and otherwise get the product saleable. Stuff that was not fit to go back on the market was fair game for employee use. I suppose we got a discount on it…can’t recall. I DO recall however that if one was in need of, say some Premium 36/8’s for the weekend, for some reason you’d accidentally drop a case and bust a bottle or 2. Funny how that works.
From there we’d graduate to Driver’s Helper…“riding shotgun” we called it. I think we had to be 16 to get to this level. You had 3 drivers to go with, Jack, Larry or Andy. Jack was a fast, hard worker. He moved fast to get home to go farm. Larry was medium-paced, friendly, and just plain cool. He had this neat creamy-white wavy hair and moustache…and we called him Peanut, why, I do not know. Andy was painfully slow, and had a lead foot, but only the brake pedal! When you ran with Andy, you’d learn to knock the load way down to prevent breakage. But he was a smooth guy, always had plenty of Old Spice on and an adequate amount of Brylcreem in his curly hair. He got the route done, but it took a while.
The next thing was to get out selling, and Dad made sure that all along the way to here you were learning about BEER. Dad called on EVERY customer at least once personally each year. This included the dinkiest beer joint in the woods, or those call-in accounts that we only delivered to 2 or 3 times in the summer only. We knew the alcoholic content gimmick they used in Canada measuring and bragging about the alcoholic content, ABV…by VOLUME, but we measured it here by weight, so that was a constant fight. We had a better way of settling the argument of who had the most alcohol in their beer. We’d stick a few bottles in the freezer, and check it every few minutes. Old Milwaukee froze first, then Hamm’s, then Schmidt Extra Special, and lastly Grain Belt Premium...end of discussion. We knew how to tap a keg without getting nailed under the chin. Of course we had to know how to install draft systems. One summer I installed 100 such setups, but back then draft beer was just becoming popular, replacing Quart Beer, so anybody, including a small resort or tavern in the woods that had an old fridge lying around wanted a tap set up. Of course, they had no walk in cooler to hold a spare, and that is where that Sat. morning phone would start ringing at 10 to. Most anywhere you went there would be a red diamond to pull on for good fresh tap beer. Man, there was nothing better than a good cold 3.2 tap Grain Belt! I much preferred its clean, crisp, sharp taste to strong beer. Nowadays people scoff at 3.2 beer, but will go in to a liquor store and slop up the new low-cal beers, totally unaware that their 55 calorie beer is only 1.92% alcohol by weight! It’s nearly near beer! (Multiply ABV x .8 to get ABW, x 1.25 to get ABW to ABV). Malt liquor changed everything, and the GBX story is another 12 pages.
Some NEW 5/1/2013: Dad was passionate about the quality of his beer products, so when draft became so popular he helped set up a guy in the beer line cleaning business, the first of its kind in the area. That beer line service used to have a sticker on the tap station stating such, not a bad idea. It was Dad and Luke Laskow, the draft beer manager of GB that set up Wes Hradsky back then. State law prohibited them from owning it. I used to see some taps out there the completion was pouring from, and often there would be a goober of green fuzzy slime dangling from the spigot. I don’t know how the beer even got out. We got a lot of new tap accounts that way!
Until then I had to go out and do it myself with that little pump bottle and some BTF (Bar Tender’s Friend, a disinfectant). We sold the stuff, as well as TDC (Triple Duty Concentrate, a detergent), and test strips and related beer junk. A favorite way to show your customer the proper way to clean a glass was to just drink a “scoop” of beer. A scoop was a glass of draft beer. If the glass had no “lacing”, the glass was not “beer clean”. It was clean, sanitary-wise, but not beer clean. You should be able to see each gulp of beer you took by its tell-tale lacing, or foam rings left on the glass. If no rings, someone was either eating pizza or a Slim Jim, had lipstick or chapstick on, or the wash water was too oily and needed discarding. OR, they were using some household SOAP, heaven forbid! So we educated the trade, and sold a gob of chemicals, and at the same time if a beer joint sold Grain Belt, it had good quality beer from the keg to the lip. He was insistent upon this. A glass that was not beer clean not only did not look appealing…it had a flat non-foaming head, so the CO2 could not release, which would make you belch . To this day I just have to pour a bottle of beer in to a glass, and I have to have a beer clean glass. Why is it that nowadays you go to a nice fancy restaurant and they bring you your beer and no glass??? I’m not going to drink out of the bottle; I want to SEE what I am drinking! Back then a glass was usually inverted on the bottle top and it was sent to your table as such. Now you have to ask for a glass.
We had to know about beer getting “light struck”*. Any direct sunlight was a killer on beer. The Premium came in a clear bottle but had a square of cardboard on the ends of the case to keep light from coming in the handle holes. There was no such problem for the Golden that came in a dark bottle. We used to call the two brews Dark and Light, but of course it was not light in calories as today’s Light Beer as it had not yet been invented. One time we were calling on an account, Manhattan Beach, and in the time a guy set his beer down on the bar to go take a pool shot, a small sliver of light had swung around from the crack in the curtain, and the beer got Light Struck…“skunky” as they say I guess, but caused by getting Light Struck! Man, light struck beer tastes awful! There was a similar problem with the clear Premium bottles in glass-front coolers with fluorescent bulbs. I think modern science has now solved this problem with some sort of process or additive.
Then came refrigerated beer lines. This was something that required a refrigeration man to come up from the brewery to install the Freon lines. This would be Otto. He was a big tall guy, and he had a hard time getting in to small places. One time we did 40’ or so run UNDER the floor at the old Lakeside Bar in downtown Brainerd. It was a 16” crawlspace, so I had to go in and shinny the run with those copper tubes tied to my foot. The place was full of dead rats and spiders, spilled dead beer and soap dripping from above, and a lot of shed snake skins. Gawd, that was fun! This was our first non- forced air installation, and a first in the area where the beer was in a cooler not just in the basement below, or behind the tap head, but clear in back of the room in some remote walk in. We used a lot of duct tape as the lines had to then be insulated with foam.
Kegs were a big part of the business in the heyday of Grain Belt in those early 70’s, and remember that GB had over half of ALL the beer business then. We’d get in a full semi load at a time in the summer, and they came one upright with another on top of that on its side; there were no pallets involved yet. Don Lord was our semi driver…we called him The Lard. You could do that back then, and nobody got offended. He never touched a keg, but did watch us unload the stuff. We wore these cool chaps, like an apron that was full front, and there was a rubber sheet sewn in to the front so the sweat of the keg would not get through. There was this black goo that was a chemical reaction of the aluminum kegs touching each other I guess, and without this apron you would be covered in the stuff. The hand cart had to be stuck under the keg, then you’d give it a tip, and a flick while pushing with your foot, and the cart flange would zip under the keg…pretty slick once you got the hang of it. Then the trick was to get your hand and enough weight behind the cart to be able to tip the 2 without losing the top one. But, 2 guys could unload a whole semi in under an hour. The walk in was just 15’ away so it was pretty handy. Remember, back then a good account like the Happy Hour would take a dozen kegs on Monday morning, another 6 on Wed., and a good weekend fill of another 6 or so. These were half-barrels, not those silly sixth-barrels they use so much today so they can cram 6 or 8 brands on a 3-keg cooler. They used to cash more paychecks here than the banks on Fridays. But, there were only 3 or 4 tap joints in the whole town…Eddies and Hofner’s, maybe one more. And tap beer was not a fashionable foo-foo spendy specialty brew, rather a poor-man’s drink since they were 3/$1 when a bottle was a buck.
Delivering kegs was a bit of an art. So you got them out of the walk in at the warehouse, then what? If it was summertime and you had a keg stop on the tail end of your route, you had to put a cover over it. This was a big green quilted insulated canvas bag you’d slip over the keg. It would soak up some sweat and stay pretty cold the whole day. Kegs went in to walk-ins of course, but most of those were in a basement. Midway Bar in Crosby had a spiral staircase which meant you bumped it down, that is, you went down backwards and pulled the keg with you one step… or bump at a time. This compound twist here was a dusey. Then the Spina Bar in Ironton had the ol’ trap door on the side of the building. There was a 1” rope hanging there that had a knot every foot or so, and at the end some ice tongs. So you’d get the tongs on the keg making sure to set them so if the keg turned on its decent, it would not find that bottom flat spot that got that last drop of beer to the tapper tube. If it did that side would let loose, and your buddy waiting to get the keg down there would get squished. Now you’d lift it to the edge of the trap door, and free-suspend it down with minimal wall contact on account of that spin earlier described, and try to land it on the rubber or hemp bumper on the floor. You had to have a good back for this stop...it was the worst one. If you started with a bad back, you’d finish with a worse back. Town Tavern had a trap door, but it had a midway landing spot so you’d balance the keg on the lip hoping it would stay put and not crush you later, then jump in the hole and while standing on that half-way spot, manhandle the beast to that mid-level, jump to the basement floor and do it again. We never seemed to have a second person here. At the Happy Hour the access doors were in the alley. You’d lower the skid, which was just a 2x12” plank with a 1x2 on one edge, get the keg over the dreaded lip, and babysit the thing all the way down a flight of stairs, to the first bumper, make a right turn, backwards, down two steps to the next bumper, and to the cooler. Repeat this a dozen times. The Rustic Bar had just a set of stairs, and the center of each step was worn almost through from thousands of kegs being bumped down them. The keg had a wide spot so that’s where the wear was. I was down in that cavern the other day, now Shep’s On Sixth, and noticed that they had to shadow each step with another 2x6 board right over the old ones. Another tricky deal was the several trap doors in the sidewalks, like the Brainerd Legion, and the Ace Bar in Staples. You had to go in the basement and shinny up in to the trap, unlock the steel door, then shake the bejeebers out of them to warn the pedestrian up above that these doors were going to appear in front of them. The Ransford was pretty slick because they had a dumbwaiter that would hold you and 4 kegs. The trick was to adjust the brake-the small rope, just enough to lower the load and clunk on the basement floor. This was not electric, rather hand-over-hand man powered, pulling the big rope. The trick was doing the hand-over-hand thing and braking at the same time! Come to think of it, the Sub Club on Hwy. 169 had one too. I wonder how beer guys get the suds delivered now. I’ll bet it’s not nearly as fun.
Back then we thought our little ol’ Minnesota was quite capable of producing its own beer, but for some reason people wanted what they saw on TV for a beer made elsewhere. Grass greener syndrome I guess. We had posters touting Keep Minnesota Brewing. We almost lost it. About in the mid-1970’s GB was sold, a few times, The Great Liquidator did just that to it. Dad was smart enough to get out while he still had something to sell, in 1976. Now fast forward to 2013. Not only does Minnesota have several new breweries, but GB is on the comeback and their new Nordeast is a super seller, a light amber lager I think, and we are brewing beer right here in my own town...well, Baxter, I call it the Brainerd Area, Jack Pine Brewery. We’ve come full circle, since beer has not been brewed here commercially in 99 years. Next year we might have to be a celebration.
NEW 5/1/2013: Holy crud, I almost forgot about EMPTIES! Nowadays there is probably no such thing, as all the bottles are just thrown away, recycled perhaps. Sometimes the sound of breaking glass in a bar is nerve-wracking. Back then we had only one package called Throw-Aways, a 12 oz. screw-top brown glass bottle in 6 packs, but they were a poor seller. Of course we had a lot of cans, either 4/6-packs or 24/12’s called “flats”, and a few magnums…16 oz. cans. Well, while I’m on it, we’d carry a few quarts that were 2 6 count cases in a master tray. Then we had the 36/8’s, a clear bottle of Premium in a square case that didn’t fit anywhere. The 35/7’s were golden, in the brown bottle. These oddballs took up mabye 10% of the truck, but were always in the way. Cans went on the wheel housings on account of the weight. The rest were returnables, the 2 Grain Belts and some White Label and a splash of Hauenstein. We called these pints, although they were not 16 oz., rather 12…and old carry-over from the old days I suppose. In the back room, and often outside, was the dreaded Empties Pile. For every case of returnables beer we sold, remember that a case of empties had to come back. I suppose some got sold as off-sale, or otherwise lost, but I’ll bet we took back 95%. Maybe 30% of your truck was cans or throw-aways, so you’d somehow have to figure out a way to come back 70% “FULL” of empties! This was tricky at the first few stops. Often we’d take off say 20 dark and 25 light, then punch the empties back in to the same hole to keep them from tipping. If it was Andy’s truck, you’d pay much more attention to this detail. But if the first few stops were not taverns, rather off-sales, few empties came back. The opposite might happen where you stop at a bar early on in the route and there are more empties than there is room to put them if the order going in was small. So then we’d stop back on the way back and pick them up. That’s the details on empties, but not what prompted to recall all of this. The tap slime reminded me of the empties swill. This was those last few drops, or gulps of beer that remained in the bottom of the bottle, maybe sitting outside for a week, or 2, in the 90 degree heat. They’d stack them so high the top few were thrown up on top of the pile. To get them you’d tip the pile of say 9, put your hand on #7 or so, and the top 2 would come flying at your face, and you had to cradle the top and bottom somehow. Inevitably the cover flaps would fly open and out would come some of that old, dead moldy beer all over your face and shirt. I can still smell it, and on a good day you’d encounter one with a rotten mouse and some maggots, bees were a real threat, and fruit flies were everywhere…awesome.
Those were the Beer Days.
-4/27/2013, more to come
Reader Comments:
Very cool read! It's interesting how many of today's beer drinkers (including myself) don't know of a beer culture before the big three. Of course, now it's just the big two with Bud, and Miller-Coors. Times are changing and we'll see the shift turn the other direction, or possibly just a repeat of the last 50 years. Interesting industry for sure. Glad to be on the upswing of people searching for a local option.
*As for the light-struck beer, I know a thing or two about that. There is a compound in the hops that, when struck by light, is transformed into the identical chemical produced by a skunk. Brown glass filters out nearly all of the wavelength of light responsible for this reaction. Most brews in clear glass now days are brewed with a hop extract that has the precursor compound removed, so it cannot get skunky. My two cents. I particularly enjoyed the effort to keep beer lines and beer glasses clean.
Clean glassware is something I've been struggling with in the taproom since we opened. I think the rinse cycle needs a bit more focus with the volunteers.
4/28/2013-2: There is oxidized, which is definitely different than light-struck. All beers will have some amount of oxygen in them at time of packaging. The big guys put a lot of focus on this to ensure the product stays fresh to the tap (or glass). Oxidation leads to a cardboard flavor in the beer. Some beers it’s more noticeable than others. Keeping the beer cold (hence the push behind constant refrigeration) will slow down the oxidation process. Repeated cycles between hot and cold really degrades the flavor as well.
I'm glad that you can see it as your brewery.
That's what I want. My goal is to build something that people of the area can be proud to share with others. –4/28/2013, Patrick Sundberg, brewmaster, Jack Pine Brewery, Baxter, MN
UPDATED: 12/31/2016
Me and GB!
UPDATED: 12/31/2016
This page is where I'll put stories relating to my personal adventures with the brand while working for my dad from my early high school years until he retired in 1976. This was the best job I've ever had or likely ever will!
CANVASETTE PRINTS:
1/24/03:
I'm not sure if this is an accurate description of this type of print, "canvasette", but it's what my Dad called them. The term likely was due to the fact that the material has a canvas-like texture to it, almost woven. They were also what Dad called "plasticized", like a shiny gloss coating was sprayed over it to keep it more washable and to protect it from the hazards of hanging in a smoky ol' bar for a year or more.
SIZE: “Vintage 1960's Grain Belt Beer Wildlife Canvas Print 33 X. 27.25 Inches.”
The first reference to a Canvasette I can find is in the July 1955 Grain Belt Diamond publication, Vol. 1, No. 3. On page 6 is a picture of a 15.5’ wall display at Joe’s Crossroad’s Bar in Barron, Wisc. On it is the Grizzly print, jumping trout plaster fish with placard and some cardboard bottles...all of course framed out nicely in Corabuff. There is no mention of the item being a new advertising piece, so there may have been prior ones. See Timeline below. These are 33X27" horizontal prints that started their series in the mid-50's and ran in to the late-60's to my knowledge. They were used primarily for assembling "wall displays*". There are around 30 different of these that I know of, mostly of wildlife or cabin scenes. The earlier ones had no GB diamond logo or name on them whatsoever; 2 that I know of. Later came just the wording "compliments of Grain Belt Beer", then later he same with the logo, then just the logo. One of the last must have been the one with the late 60's snowmobiles in it. Some of these scenes were also used in other POS such as on lighted signs as "transparencies", lighted from behind. I am partial to one in particular. It was made in 1960** right here in the Brainerd area with local people in the pictures, on Round Lake. See below.
CABIN ON ROUND LAKE canvasette:
Here to the best of my recollection is the story on this one as told by my Dad. Keep in mind that my recollection is as old as me, and the story as I heard it several times may have been embellished a bit by the persuasion of some hops and barley. This story may or may not be accurate, but it will be good!
One day the brewery called Brainerd distributor Will Faust to see if they could do a photo shoot in the Brainerd area for some advertising Point Of Sale (POS). They asked if he thought he could find 3 guys who could take a day or 2 off at $100/day for fishing and all the Grain Belt beer they could drink! Will didn't think that would be too tough.
Being a good businessman, he thought he'd take advantage of the situation and "tap" in to some of his best tap accounts at the time. In those days an account with your brand on tap was a good account indeed, and merited special attention. Will had just come to town in 1955, and had few such accounts. So, he went to his best one and recruited (Hubert) "Andy" Anderson, one of the bartenders. Then he went down the street and enlisted Jerry Larson who was the manager of the VFW. Not to leave out one of the "3.2" accounts, he went up to Merrifield and confiscated (Harland) "Red" Lord, owner of Red's tavern, now The Chaparral. His brother Don was Will's semi driver.
I'm not sure if the shoot took more than one day, but apparently they didn't get much fishing in as the beer was extremely cold. The photo appears to be taken in the summer, and by the angle of the sun you can see it must have been at least 8:00 PM. They started at 7:00 in the morning. Now, upon close examination of the print, a few peculiarities are visible. For one, those fish are trout and there's no trout in that there Round Lake. They had to send someone up to Motley to the fishery to buy some fish. Jerry, on the left is hoisting a huge mess of fish, like a dozen about 2' long. Now, with a load like that and your arm outstretched horizontally, one would certainly have his legs bent and leaning to the opposite side to counter-balance the load. Well, Jerry could only hold the weight so long so they got a broomstick and you can just barely see him holding it in his hand. By the way, 2 interior versions of the shoot exist, one with the fishing theme, and one with Andy holding some ducks up. In the outside version you see Red with the same red duck hunting shirt, flannel I suppose, and a bit hot for summer. Andy and Red also have tall Sorel-type boots on, a bit warm, but they also have on rain gear so who knows? The rain must have just quit as the sky is blue and sun is shining, but then this is in Minnesota. Now look at the angle of the sun and its shadows, yet Red is casting a shadow high up on the cabin 45 degrees away. Not to nit-pick the thing, it's still my favorite print. Besides, if I was really nit-picking I'd wonder where they got dead ducks in the middle of the summer...hmmmm. Were there 2 photo shoots, months apart? I later had the pleasure to work with Andy since he went to work for my Dad in the 70's. We had a lot of fun together on the routes. He used to gob on a vat of Old Spice which smelled good to me, so I figured if it was good enough for Andy it was good enough for me. I've been using the stuff ever since, and look how I turned out!
A few years ago I walked the area of lakeshore on the road side on Ojibwa Road between Round and North Long lakes, of about where I thought the cabin was located. It belonged to at the time John Konshak, who was Dad's neighbor across the alley in Brainerd, and the local Chevrolet dealer. I'm surprised there is not at least a front bumper from a 1960 Chevy Bel Air in the photo! I was able to identify the cabin although it is now a very dark brown, not the very light almost yellow wood log color as in the print. The tip-off was the unique detailing of the fascia board above Andy's head. I was unable to locate the present owner for years, until one summer I was at the flea market selling some GB items, this print being one of them. Some guy came along and said "hey, that's my cabin!". Needless to say he bought the print. He knew of the photo shoot by hearsay in the neighborhood, but never had seen the print. He about fell over when I mentioned there was an inside version too. I found it almost by accident in some of Dad's old photos. It was in the form of an 8X10" positive, which I had converted to a negative then a print. The new cabin owner invited me over to the cabin, and in comparing the inside photos, believe it or not it is almost untouched, right down to some of the same furniture!
**The interior duck hunting acetate/transparency is "dated" 6018, which I take as the 18th advertising piece produced in 1960. The exterior fishing transparency reads 611, or the first item in 1961. I am deducing that the hunting scene was for the 1960 fall season, and the fishing scene was saved for the following summer's opening of fishing season.
This is from an e-mail I got from a guy whose granddad owned the cabin sometime after the photo shoot:
"I have the "canvasette" of the 3 gentlemen at the corner of the cabin outside with the fish hanging in my porch. I got it when my Grandpa died and he bought it from you. My grandparents owned that cabin since I was 3 (61-62) and my Grandma sold it in the late 80's. It was called "Ruff N Knotty" apparently by the 1st owners and since my Grandparents last name was Reeser it became Reeser's Ruff N Knotty to us. I was very surprised to say the least when my Aunt and Uncle stopped by on the way thru a few weeks ago and informed me there was another print by the chimney with them holding ducks as your site verified. I stayed at the cabin every summer and some of my fondest memories were made up there. I'm interested in viewing, hell, buying the other 2 prints as is my brother. Is there any way you could help? You sure have a cool site. We all loved it. I can imagine the tour my Grandpa gave you of the cabin. He was so proud to do so and gave many people the tour. I had put away the canvasette years ago, rolled up and brought it out and framed it about 6 months ago. Strange how this is all coming together. Almost as if Grandpa had a hand in it. Thanks for your time and please let me know how I can get a hold of a print or the real thing."
Actually it was not his granddad who gave me the tour, but the present owner, in about 2000. This was the first time I'd been inside the cabin.
And from the other brother, Perry Packer, 6/1/05:
"Here are some notes from my Grandma on the cabin: Bought cottage in 1963 for $14,000 with furnishings included. Taxes $222.62.
Sold Cottage May 15, l992 sights unseen for $l25,000 furnishings and boat included. Taxes over a thousand. - Mrs. Grace Reeser."
*WALL DISPLAYS:
As a kid I remember Dad being gone for weeks on end in the spring of the year, past my bed time sometimes. I'd ask Mom where the heck Dad has been lately, and she'd say he's "out putting up wall displays". All of Dad's best accounts gave him a premiere location on a huge wall, sometimes on a back bar, but most often opposite it on the other side of the room, or back on a wall in the ballroom. They were often 30 or 40' long, and incorporated the latest POS items, mostly small wall plaques, and some larger cardboard items such as Stanley & Albert figures and blow-ups of GB bottles and cans. The canvasettes and the entire display was "framed" with a product called Corobuf, a corrugated colored cardboard-like paper that came in huge rolls. It came in 3' widths or any variety of 2 or 3" wavy shapes to create a sort of frame around things. It was stapled on with a tiny 1/8th." staple. These staple guns, like most everything else in those days, was provided by the brewery.
I have no idea just how many of these displays Dad and the brewery man would tackle in a day. Mom always invited the rep over for dinner at least once during his stay. It was big deal, and I always enjoyed talking to them. My most memorable was the first one I came upon, at I suppose 5 or 6 years old in the mid 1950's. His name was George Stramm, a big burley guy with a robust laugh...wore suspenders I think to hold his pants up to his belly; looked like Fred Mertz on Lucy. I doubt he was ever the one to go up on the ladder. If Dad was Stanley, George was certainly Albert. We were not told that the brewery rep was coming to dinner, it was “George Stramm is coming to dinner”, and that meant getting dressed up. I remember being sad when I heard that George Stramm died. The next one was Art Nelson, another great guy and a good friend of our family. I believe he retired and was replaced by Fran Skilling. This must have been in the late 70's, as I went out and made sales calls with him. I thought it weird that he was not beer drinker...bourbon I think.
By the time I went full-time with Dad, in the early 70's, the wall display thing was about done. The only ones I saw on the market were out in the country in out-of-the-way dance halls like Birch Haven, one of those call-in for a delivery joints. The display was up high above the bar 8 or 10', where nothing could get ripped off. Any of these displays left then likely had some collectible POS still hanging, like from the 50's or very early 60's!
GRIZZLY canvasette:
This is one of the 2 that had no indication on them that they were GB advertising. One of these hung in Dad's basement amusement room for as long as I can remember. As a kid I'd lay there on that old burgundy velour wood-trimmed couch, looking at that big grizzly staring at me, with its huge claws, and I was terrified. This must have been in the 50's yet so I'm thinking it was dated 1955 at least, unless Dad brought it up from Des Moines with him, which I doubt. Dad put ALL of the POS out in the market, and saved little.
I've only run across one other than the one I own, and I don't know even if that one was Dad's. I bought it at a junk shop and have since sold it. Of all the prints I have I think this would be the most desirable to reproduce, as it's an awesome painting. It depicts a man in a canoe rounding a bend in the river and surprising a big grizz standing upright. There is no artist listed, but I'd sure like to find out who did it!
If I ever get some time, I'll attempt to list ALL of the Canvasette Prints that I know of. Here's a start, with my own idea of its "name" and description:
See the complete document with photos on the link below...click the button...