Rolling Rock was my beer of choice during most of my college years. Oh, I still drank Old Dutch, since my parents always brought me a six-pack from Lorain when they visited me in the dorm. But Rolling Rock was the beer I discovered on my own. I liked it – the unique taste, the painted bottles and the whole mystique of the brand, which was based on the fact that the beer was “Brewed with Pure Mountain Spring Water.”
I must have drank a lot of it, because I still have two Rolling Rock case boxes from college.
Anyway, above is an ad for Rolling Rock that ran in the Lorain Journal back on Feb. 20, 1952. It’s a handsome ad, with great typography and a nice illustration of the bottle.
Unfortunately, Rolling Rock was sold to Anheuser-Busch in 2006, who moved production of the beer away from Latrobe, Pennsylvania. The beer was never the same.
I also missed out on visiting the place where Rolling Rock was brewed for so many years. By the time I happened to be in Pennsylvania on a camping trip very close to Latrobe, the brewery had just closed.
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| Modern bottle design |
Ahhhhh Old Dutch "The good Beer".
ReplyDeleteI never much cared for the beer, but I am in favor of any bottle with a painted-on label and a 1939 copyright.
ReplyDelete33! I used to drive by the signs for Latrobe when I was in Penn and wondered if I would be able to find the "glass-lined tanks" although I never tried. I enjoyed the brew and the mystery of the "33".
ReplyDeleteAs a Pennsyltucky Boy, RR was my go-to-brew. We used to say they put it in the green bottles so you couldn't see the *real* color as you drank it.
ReplyDeleteI liked the pony bottles best 'cause you could drink it all before it got warm!
I agree... Once it was bought, it just wasn't the same!