March 17, 2002 -- I've long been a fan of vintage European advertising posters, such as the classic Alphonse Mucha work for Veuve Cliquot or the seductively striking early posters for Lillet and Campari. So when I noticed that BeerBooks.com was now carrying a line of vintage beer posters, I became very interested.

On the plus side artistically is that there is quite a range of styles from which to choose, 105 designs in all, ranging from quirky French posters to romantic American ones. On the down side, to me at least, it seems that the best artists and most creative ideas of the early twentieth century were reserved for higher-end beverages like Champagne. So while almost all of the art is good, little is great.

I chose the Bières de Chartres #1 from the first page as my sample for evaluation, and I must say that I'm impressed. The image is printed with toner instead of ink, which the site says allows "greater detail on the image, as well as durability and a fine luster." Without an ink-printed piece to stand beside it, it's difficult to comment on the detail being better, but I will say that the colours are vibrant and the image crisp and well-portrayed. The sense of texture that you sometimes get with ink might not be as acute, but once the poster is mounted under glass that becomes a moot issue anyways.

Paper quality is outstanding on these posters, a very heavy grade of beautiful white stock. So in addition to looking good, durability should be very high.

At $22.95 plus shipping per print, I think that the BeerBooks.com posters represent excellent value, and the splendid organization of the sample pages makes shopping easy. Check them out for yourself at http://www.beerbooks.com.

(Conflict note: BeerBooks.com carries all of my books currently in print and is the chosen retailer for this site. In writing this review, however, I have tried to completely divorce myself from that fact.)

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