Love the hat and ‘stache: that cool Moretti Man!
Though it’s now part of the Heineken universe and is a brand that started about 160 years ago in Udine, in Friuli-Venezia Giulia in northeastern Italy, Moretti is a 4.6% ABV pale lager with a label that features artwork that I find quite quaint.
As far as beer-can art goes, I slot it into the same beer-label pantheon as the image of the rugged Polish shepherd you’ll find on a can of Tatra (which is named for a Polish sheepdog), a brand that is in the Żywiec group of beers, which is also part of Heineken (wouldn’t you know). You don’t have to go too far to find a dominant beer giant behind even the most quirky, obscure brands.
The origin story of Moretti Man, however, is as murky as a pint of stout and has been subject to no little debate and argument: was he the re-presentation of a mustachioed patio drinker that founding brewer Menazzi Moretti spied at the Trattoria Boschetti in Udine, in 1942, as reports have it?
Or, was he inspired by a 1939 photograph of a Tyrolean farmer from Thaur?
In the latter theory, easily available to peruse with an Internet search, there was apparently even a legal schmozzle when the German photographer, upon seeing Moretti advertising campaigns some years later, accused the brewer of stealing her intellectual property in the 1950s.
Such is the beery tall-tale. Either way, I love the beer, the hat and the ‘stache!
