art direction, design + typography
From the reference box #25
“There’s a promise in a glass of Mackeson” beermat, I’m guessing from the 60’s. I really like the colours and the quality of the print, but it’s the type that stands out for me - it’s really dynamic and creates quite a modern looking layout. The unusual thing about it too is that the brand name does not appear in full on either side!
Mackeson's XXX is a dark sweet beer, known in the UK as a sweet stout or a milk stout as it is derived from milk and contains lactose and sugar.
According to Wikipedia, the Mackeson recipe has been around since 1801, long before milk stout was given a patent in 1875 and was originally brewed by Mackeson’s Brewery in Hythe, Kent, until it was purchased by Whitbread in the 1920’s.
Whitbread gave the brand the distribution and marketing it deserved turning it into the market leader for low alcohol content sweet dark beer - which seems like a very select category, but who am I to judge!
In 1950 a Mackeson tv ad showed Bernard Miles delivering one of the most long-lasting and memorable straplines of the time, informing viewers that Mackeson, “looks good, tastes good and, by golly it does you good”. Just how true that is, I’m not sure but they didn’t seem to worry too much about that back then.
These days Mackeson is owned by Whitbread, but brewed in 3 varieties by Young’s in their Ram Brewery, London ‘under supervision’ of Inbev; a 3.75% abv version for the UK, XXX version - 5% abv for the US market (brewed in Cincinnati, Ohio) and a XXX 4.9% abv version brewed by Carib Brewery, Trinidad for the local market, where it is marketed with the slogan "Take it to the Max" (at least they didn’t say - Macks!) to fitness conscious young men that enjoy socializing - still on the “it does you good” theme it seems.
Who would have guessed - all that from one tiny beermat!
#25 - Mackeson Beermat
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