When Ads Referenced “Petroleum Monomers”
A small item today, taken from the bathroom wall of Ferment Brewing in Hood River. It highlights the tension between technology and tradition that has always existed in beer.
Radical technology advances started in the 19th century and really hit their apex in the twentieth. Anyone alive after the world wars until the 1980s will recall a time in which technology was much more thrilling than food. Freeze-dried coffee was much cooler than buying beans in bulk, an act for only the most desperate Luddite. Shelf-stable cheese, meat products that came in cans, vegetables sold canned, frozen, or dehydrated—that was modern living, baby! And so it is no surprise that Glidden would advertise their petroleum monomer beer-can liners in magazines.
In the late 1970s and ‘80s, humans finally woke up and smelled the acrid, undrinkable Sanka. This was the moment the first craft breweries would launch, and they acted as an antidote to space-age tech by offering whole-grain, no-additive beer. The negative connotations about cans among good-beer drinkers emerged from precisely this kind of technology—and amazingly, persisted for 35 years. That’s how strongly it imprinted our memories.
Things are changing now, of course, as drinkers and brewers are embracing tech anew. (The cycle hasn’t stopped for hundreds of years; it was a factor, albeit a lesser one, going back to Reinheitsgebot.) We are back to cans, and cans are still lined with plastic. But now at least we have the good sense not to valorize it. I have a hard time imagining an ad today talking about the petrochemical chemistry of a can as a way to impress the general public. But in the 70s it did.
Meanwhile, the Pacific Northwest enjoys gorgeous weather for a few more days. Over the weekend, Sally and I took a stroll to the top of Wind Mountain in the Gorge. The skies remain a little smoky, giving vistas like this one an atmospheric quality.
Afterward we retired to Hood River for dinner and a beer. I’d hoped to sit by the fire pit at pFriem, but the wait was 90 minutes, so we retired to Ferment’s large second-story patio. Ferment does great work, including a Czech-style pilsner they call, I note with approval, 12°. It makes for an excellent post-hike refresher.
The rains are about to arrive, and outdoor dining will dwindle with the good days. I feel like a felon awaiting the time before I have to go inside for a stretch at the big house. It makes the beer taste all the nicer.