In the Old Days, Beer Came with Verse

The Christian Moerlein Brewery was a burgeoning business in the late 19th century. One of its bottled beers was "National Export" which had this poem on the label:


The Moerlein "National Export" Beer,
Parexcellence Stands Without A Peer,
From Native Shores To Foreign Lands,
It Heads the List of Beverage Brands,
The Convalescent, Sick and Well,
The Gay Dundine, The Natty Swell,
The Scions of Nobility,
The Peasant and the King,
Its Songs of Praise to Sing,
From Greenland's Icy Mountains,
To India's Burning Strand,
The Native and The Travelers,
Drink "National Export" Brand,
A Congress of All Nations,
Mid Round and Lusty Cheers,
Has Crowned The "National Export,"
The "Queen of Table Beers."


As I read this, I remembered a college writing assignment to re-write Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants" in the voice of a contemporary couple. If I was a marketing professor I might give students a similar assignment with this beer verse. And who knows, maybe there's a brewer out there with a sense of history and humor who will once again bring us beer with corny verse. It made America great once before and it can do so again.