Rooting through a secondhand bookshop in Penzance this week, we found a box full of old beer mats and couldn’t resist buying a little stack. Many were from now extinct breweries, advertising beers which don’t exist anymore. Their designs are simple but very evocative of another age.
Here are a handful of scans, mostly of British beer mats, but with one excellent German design thrown in as a bonus: you can’t go wrong with any picture of a planet doffing his boater, can you?
12 replies on “Vintage beer mat designs”
I used to collect beermats as a kid. The German ones were always a favourite because they were about as thick as a farley’s rusk.
… lovely examples of letterpress printing too. Miniature works of art.
The Devenish & EP beers pre date the mid 70s when I came down here; I knew both the ranges very well. The Devenish one appears to show they had different bottle ranges for Weymouth & Redruth, they still bottled at both sites in the 70s but the range was then universal with some brands being done in Weymouth & others in Redruth (the Stout I remember was SW Stout)
Guy — interesting. What’s EP? (Assume they brewed Huntsman? Weird that there’s no brewery name on the mat.)
TIW — there was an exhibition on the Design Research Unit at the Tate in St Ives just around when we moved to Cornwall. Lots of lovely Watney’s branding and design in that which I reckon you’d have appreciated.
EP – Eldridge Pope
“Austoss” is now my favourite German word.
Austoss austoss austoss.
Or “Ausstoss”, even.
Tandleman — ta. Should have worked that out.
TBN — think Ausstoss means “to doff one’s boater”.
Thanks for scanning. Enjoy looking at old beer mats.
Dave — me too! Might scan a few more next week.
Love these! I’m currently a bit obsessed with old posters, bottle labels and beer mats – I just love the look of them. Scan us some more 🙂
Done. See our latest post.