A Tale of Two Breweries

Before diving into construction I thought I'd compare the parts between the Model Power version of the brewery that I bought new maybe 7 or 8 years ago at a hobby store in Montreal against those from AHM produced in the late '60s. In all the photos, the Model Power parts are on the left, and the AHM are on the right.

Let's start with the walls. Right away you can see the AHM kit has multi-colour brick wall mouldings in fairly brick-like colours, and the MP version are monochromatic and not too brick-like in colour. This feature of multi-colour AHM parts is carried through on the other parts, and they make the later day MP mouldings look rather crude in comparison.

Same deal with the roofs. Much nicer colouring on the old AHM parts.

Same with the wood parts. I was planning on building the AHM kit and painting it up and detailing it like the brewery in E. L. Moore's article, but after seeing the parts, I think I might build up the MP version as I don't want to paint over the AHM's colours.

Here are the roofs for the auxiliary wings. I assume moulding the parts in single colours reduces production costs. But, for a model on the lower end of the price spectrum that might not be painted, the unpainted MP model would certainly look more toy-like.

Not much difference on these detail parts sprues.

Chimneys and some brick whatnot. Again, the brick colour is much better on the AHM.

Another sprue of 'wooden' detail pieces. The MP version really falls down on the colour of these items.

The biggest difference in parts is with the guttering and downspouts. It's quite different between the two kits. I guess the green coloured AHM parts are to represent aged copper, although the shade looks a little too strident for my tastes. This might be one area where the MP colours are better.

And finally the base. I usually leave the base off these sorts of kits, so to me the colour is irrelevant; however, again, the AHM one is more varied. 

Oh, and there was a sprue of barrels with each model.