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Dear Cecil:
The other day my friends and I were sitting around knocking
back a few beers when we came upon a question we realized only you
can answer: why does it say "33" on the back of the labels of
Rolling Rock beer?
We all know it's brewed from pure artesian well
water in the glass-lined tanks of Latrobe, Pennsylvania, hometown
of Arnold Palmer and all that. But what does the number mean?
I remember seeing it on the pony bottles ("a little nip") I drank
in
the Philadelphia of my college youth, and it's also on cans and the
long-neck returnables. One of the assembled good ol' persons
pointed out there's a French (formerly Vietnamese, he claims) beer
called "33," which may have something to do with it. --Stephanie
F., Washington, D.C.
Dear Stephanie:
I would venture to say there are still one or two people in this
country who don't know about Rolling Rock beer. Too bad. It is a
brave little brew with many shining qualities to recommend it.
Among them:
(1) It's got a taste with some gravel to it, at least on
occasion--the flavor is notoriously variable.
(2) They print the ingredients on the label, unlike most brewers.
(They use water, malt, rice, corn, hops, and brewer's yeast, in
case you're interested.) But most important of all:
(3) It's got an undeniable mystique, which derives mainly from the
enigmatic 33.
The official explanation for the number, which is not entirely
coterminous with the REAL explanation, is that 33 signifies two
things: the year Prohibition was repealed (1933), and the number of
words in the legend printed above the number on cans and returnable
bottles. I quote:
"Rolling Rock from glass lined tanks in the Laurel
Highlands. We tender this premium beer for your enjoyment as a
tribute to your good taste. It comes from the mountain springs to
you."
Now, this is a touching sentiment, and there is no question
it has 33 words in it. But from the standpoint of intellectual
satisfaction, it sucks.
Therefore, I hunted up James
L. Tito, who at one time was chief executive officer of Latrobe
Brewing, the maker of Rolling Rock beer.
Mr. Tito's family owned
Latrobe from the end of Prohibition until the company was sold to
an outfit in Connecticut in 1985. After some prompting, he told me
the sordid truth.
Based on some old notes and discussions with
family members now dead, Mr. Tito believes that putting the 33 on
the label was nothing more or less than a horrible accident. It
happened like this:
When the Titos decided to introduce the
Rolling Rock brand around 1939, they couldn't agree on a slogan for
the back of the bottle. Some favored a long one, some a short one.
At length somebody came up with the 33-word beauty quoted above,
and to indicate its modest length, scribbled a big "33" on it.
More
argument ensued, until finally somebody said, dadgummit, boys,
let's just use this one and be done with it, and sent the 33-word
version off to the bottle maker.
Unfortunately, no one realized
that the big 33 wasn't supposed to be part of the design until 50
jillion returnable bottles had been made up with the errant label
painted permanently on their backsides. (I suppose this bespeaks a
certain inattentiveness on the part of the Tito family, but I am
telling you this story just as it was told to me.)
This being the
Depression and all, the Titos were in no position to throw out a
lot of perfectly good bottles. So they decided to make the best of
things by concocting a yarn about how the 33 stood for the year
Prohibition was repealed.
In retrospect, this was a stroke of
marketing genius. Next to cereal boxes, beer labels are probably
the most thoroughly scrutinized artifacts in all of civilization,
owing to the propensity of beer drinkers to stare morosely at them
at three o'clock in the morning.
The Rolling Rock "33" has baffled
beer lovers for generations, and accordingly has become the stuff
of barroom legend. I have letters claiming that the number has
something to do with a satanic ritual, that it was the age of
Christ when he died, even that it signifies the number of
glass-lined tanks in the Latrobe plant.
Tres bizarre,
but if M. Tito is to be believed, not quite as bizarre as the
truth.
--CECIL ADAMS
The Straight Dope / Questions or
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