I like the way it doesn't tell you anything at all about what it's supposed to do.

Someone on Twitter commented that she sounds pissed in the copy. I think he has a point, as the phrase 'the laugh's on the other foot now' sounds like the sort of mixup a drunk person would make! Yes, the health benefits are very carefully glossed over, although a work colleague told me that his great-gran was given stout on the NHS in the 1950s, so it seems there at least used to be some sort of medical theory behind it. Anyway, it's amusing how products nowadays have to cite studies that they carried out in adverts, which go some way to exposing how flimsy their assertions are. 'Temporary lifting effect', anyone?

Was there no problem with alcoholism back then? I mean, all this "booze will make your day better" stuff is amusing, but surely they must've known better even in the sixties...

I don't think the focus was on preventing lifestyle health issues back then, because the research hadn't gone into it. After all, it hadn't been that long since it was mooted that smoking was a major cause of lung cancer, and it took years for smoking to be treated as the health evil that it is now. Alcoholism has been a problem for many, many years, but the trouble with it is that there are levels at which it's fine to drink it, so the message is harder to get across than with smoking. If people were still smoking away happily back then, they certainly weren't going to stop drinking, although it's worth noting that drink-driving campaigning began around this time, with the introduction of the breathlyser.

At the risk of being the type of person who spreads stories without understanding the issues involved:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6922192.ece

So it's alright for Bill.

Yes, sounds highly dodgy to me!

A friend of mine found this ad in a BMI guide to doctors from the early '60s: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_a4SLAoi-Tjo/R11PPxKcR2I/AAAAAAAAAAk/_ajKT1decn.... 'This says something for Guinness': yes, it says that they had a VERY good marketing department...

They used to give new mothers a crate of Guiness when they were leaving hospital(I'm not making it up!!!)

You're certainly not! It was thought to be a good source of iron: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3266819.stm. However, there's now better ways of getting iron that doesn't send mother and baby into a stupor.