What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

“He will open a TAP of Messrs. HARE’s and Co. AMERICAN PORTER.”

Patrick Meade aimed to create some anticipation among prospective patrons who might visit his tavern, the Harp and Crown, in Southwark on the outskirts of Philadelphia.  In an advertisement that first appeared in the Pennsylvania Evening Post on December 5, 1775, he announced that “on Saturday the ninth … he will open a TAP of Messrs. HARE and Co. AMERICAN PORTER.”  Hare and Company had been building a reputation for their brew.  Two weeks earlier, William Dibley, the proprietor of the Fountain and White Horse Inn in Philadelphia, advertised that he “will open a TAP of Mr. HARE’s best AMERICAN DRAUGHT PORTER.”  Meade’s advertisement ran again on December 9, the day he tapped the celebrated porter.

Meade and Dibley deployed similar marketing strategies to entice “gentlemen and others” to visit their establishments and drink Hare and Company’s porter.  Dibley proclaimed that he “has no doubt but that the sturdy friends of American freedom will afford due honor to this new and glorious manufacture.”  Meade addressed “the TRUE FRIENDS to LIBERTY” and emphasized his location, “situated in the center of the Ship and Stave Yards,” and declared that he “expects the Associators of Freedom will give the encouragement to the American Porter it deserves.”  Meade went all in on promoting Hare and Company’s porter, asserting that “he intends no beer of any other kind shall enter his doors,” especially not porters and other beers imported from England.  The tavernkeeper made a porter brewed in America the exclusive choice for his patron, likely expecting that the lack of other options mattered less to prospective patrons when they gather to drink, socialize, and discuss politics and current events than demonstrating their patriotism by consuming a porter brewed in America.  Meade stated that he would sell Hare and Company’s “AMERICAN PORTER … in its purity,” signaling the quality of the beverage.  Meade issued both an invitation and a challenge: who could desire any beer other than one brewed in America in support of the American cause?