7 Beloved Beer Mascots You'll Never See Again
Today, there are mascots for just about everything. Sports teams and schools have costumed characters or critters around whom fans and supporters can rally. Companies choose mascots that, they hope, will become quickly recognizable and will help grow customer affinity and drive sales. According to Mascot Miracles, there are mascots for charitable organizations, social and political causes, and even for whole nations—think about America's "Uncle Sam," for example. Yale was the first American university to have an official live mascot, that being a dog named Handsome Dan, acquired in 1889, according to Bleacher Report.
Today, mascots abound, stirring up fans in stadiums, appearing at promotional events, shilling for products in ads, and generally spreading good cheer and/or brand awareness. One category of product that has produced a number of mascots over the years is beer, but unlike many ubiquitous mascots from sports teams, soda companies, or fast food chains that keep on keeping on, many beer brand mascots have been retired. For every timeless Budweiser Clydesdale, there seem to be a host more beer mascots who have slipped into obscurity. Let's take a look back at 7 once-beloved beer mascots you'll never see again.
(Plus, don't miss our Eating Habits to Lose Abdominal Fat As You Age, Say Dietitians.)
Bud Light's Spuds Mackenzie
To people of a certain age, that age being about 45 or older at the time of this writing, Spuds Mackenzie may not be forgotten. But to anyone much younger, this briefly popular beer-shilling bull terrier is likely quite unfamiliar. Spuds, who was originally portrayed by a dog with the mouthful of a name Honey Tree Evil Eye, according to UPI, was at the center of many a comical Bud Light ad in the late 1980s, starting with a commercial that aired during Super Bowl XXI in early 1987.
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Stroh's Alex the Dog
Not only is former beer mascot Alex the Dog long gone and all but forgotten, but so too, ironically, is the beer for which Alex was the mascot: Stroh's. According to The Globe and Mail, Stroh's was bought out and broken up more than 20 years ago, but about 20 years before that, in the early 1980s, Alex the Dog was the man. He appeared in multiple commercials for Stroh's from the mid-80s through the end of the decade.
Keystone's Keith Stone
By far the most recent beer mascot featured here today, and one of the few human beer mascots ever (apparently animals sell fermented beverages well), Keith Stone was a sort of hipster-redneck hybrid character who always had a case of Keystone Light on hand. Get it? Keith Stone… Keystone. According to The New York Times, he was portrayed by actor Mitchell Jarvis and, while the ads ran for many years and had a certain charm to them, they were discontinued several years ago.
The Bud Ice Penguins
In the 1990s, a series of commercials featuring a bunch of indefatigable and creepy penguins hellbent on stealing people's Bud Ice beer made quite the splash. The ad campaign, which had a sort of noir/horror movie bent (dripping in self-awareness and irony, to be sure) was brilliant, which makes it all the more of a surprise that if you ask almost anyone about the Bud Ice Penguins today they'll say: "The… what?"
Hamm's Beer Bear
See? There have been an awful lot of animal beer mascots over the years! This one, the loveable Hamm's Beer Bear was first seen back in the year 1952, according to the Post Bulletin. Unofficially named "Sascha" after the wife of the first founder of the brewery that made Hamm's, the bear was never actually named publicly, but it remained in use as a mascot until around the most recent turn of the century, when the brand dropped the bear after being pressured based on the cartoon's appeal to children, via Minn Post.
Pabst Cool Blue
It turns out that the beer booster "Duffman" from The Simpsons wasn't a completely out of the blue creation. Pabst Blue Ribbon used its own superhero figure for many years, a character called Cool Blue who had the Pabst logo emblazoned on his chest and wore a billowing red cape, red boots, and red briefs. Today, you are largely relegated to tracking down old stickers or t-shirts on eBay if you want to recall Cool Blue.
The Coors Beer Wolf
One look at the Beer Wolf, a Coors mascot retired in the early 1990s, according to the Molson Coors Blog, and you'll know why the beer brand stopped using it: it was pretty creeping looking. The Beer Wolf was emblazoned on shirts, made into fake taxidermized heads, used in ads, and was generally pretty ubiquitous from late 1980 until the aforementioned discontinuation, via American Craft Beer.
READ MORE: 11 Discontinued Beers You'll Never See Again
