Cinci Beer Ad – June 4, 1954

Regular readers of this blog know that I like to feature vintage ads from the Lorain Journal for alcoholic beverages (despite the fact I'm not much of a drinker). Ads for beer and whiskey appeared in the newspaper just about every day during the 1950s, probably because Lorain was a real working man's town.

Well, here's an ad for a beer I'd never heard of before: Cincinnati Cream, or "Cinci" Cream for short. At first glance, I thought it was brewed downstate and was a regional favorite. But it turns out that it was produced in Canada.

There's not a lot of information online about Cinci Cream Lager Beer. The label on the bottle below (courtesy of untappd.com) says, "Since 1882." 

I'm not sure if the beer's tagline – Who Wants The Handsome Waiter – is supposed to be funny or not. But the waiter is surely distinctive and adds a lot of personality to the proceedings.

Here's a vintage label courtesy of the Tavern Trove website, which reveals that Cinci Cream was brewed by the Carling Breweries Ltd.

And here's a more modern can, fresh from eBay. Alas, the 'handsome waiter' has been reduced to a silhouette.

Unfortunately, it appears from various online sources that Cinci Cream Lager Beer is no longer being produced.

You might have noticed in the Lorain Journal ad that the beer was distributed locally by the well-known Goodman Beverage. Well in 2008, Goodman Beverage was purchased by the Dayton Heidelberg Distributing Family of Companies, and moved shortly afterwards out to the former Ford Motor Company plant on Baumhart Road, which is being redeveloped by IRG Lorain LLC.

Here's a recent photo of the firm's facility at the old Ford plant. It looks pretty nice!