Hey Mabel

Depending where you are in the english speaking world, this may be familiar, “Hey Mabel, Black Label”. Now, i read,that, Black Label is the black man's beer in South Africa, and it is the top selling lager in Britain. It has been sold buy several different companies. It began in Canada in the first half of the 19th century. It had a couple of re-incarnations in Cleveland, O.

Mr. Roosevelt brought back real beer to America in 1933, a campaign promise kept. There was a luxury car company in Cleveland called Peerless Motor Car. It was the last automobile producing company in Cleveland. The Depression killed it. They had their factory at E. 94th and Quincy. James Bohannon turned the car plant into a brewery for Carling's Red Cap ale, and Black Label beer. They brewed in Cleveland from 1934 to 1971. Towards the end of WWII, they bought out Tip Top, and Black Forest.

In 1949 their advertising firm came up with the simple, successful slogan. The only one more successful, and simple, in Cleveland was, “GArfield 1-2323” which is their phone number; the Lawson's orange juice jingle was a full song. When Channel 8 WJW was Channel 9 WXEL, the sports guy, John Fitzgerald was advertising Black Label. Later the sports report went to Blatz. Eventually Heilemann bought both beers, and others, and did terrible things to them. In the 1950s and '60s Black Label was a great beer in its hometown Cleveland.

Sometimes 'recipes' were changed, especially when new management came. Schmidt's bought the old Carling's brewery in Cleveland and continued to 1984, it has been razed [and a new county juvenile detention center (courts and jail) has been built there this year.] I think, they passed out the same single swill with different labels Duke, Old Dutch, Knickerbocker, grocery store brands, P.O.C. (which was famous for its wretchedness, at one time it may have been good, and it was brought back for an eyeblink, but most of the time the letters did not stand for Pilsner of Cleveland, but PISS of Cleveland, one advertising hack called it pride of Cleveland); Heritage House was awful. This is just memory, i wouldn't want one now to be proved right, or wrong.

Not everyone had cars. Carrying a case, we are talking 24 bottles, wasn't always convenient. Not everyone wanted to pull a cart home. Beer trucks made house deliveries in those days. Before Prohibition every sizable town from New York to Missouri, and Minnesota had german breweries, now mostly gone. Milwaukee wasn't the only city that liked beer. You could get beer in Davenport and Louisville, and for that matter, New Orleans.

Iron City, Rolling Rock, Schlitz, Stroh's, Genesee, Wiedemann, Hudepohl (Erin and Leisy's were before me) and some of the others were interchangeable american lagers. On a hot day, they were a relief. There were a few exceptions, Pabst had a stench, and i mentioned the horrible products. Still, i think i could recognise and really enjoy a genuine Black Label.