Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Give Prohibition the finger

Dec. 7, 2012 


In 1919, under pressure from lobbyists, the temperance movement and general buzz-killers, the U.S. Congress passed the 18th Amendment, outlawing the manufacture, sale and distribution of alcoholic beverages in the United States. The “Noble Experiment,” as it was called, lasted until the full ratification of the 21st Amendment on Dec. 5, 1933. This week, we celebrate the repeal of Prohibition and our right to consume our favorite brews, but in order to fully appreciate our freedom to guzzle, we need to acknowledge the dastardly deeds done by Prohibition, specifically in the area of brewing.

At the dawn of the 20th century, consumers were actually migrating toward drinking more beer and fewer spirits. When Prohibition was shoved down the collective American gullet in 1919, organized crime came to the rescue, keeping booze in the hands of the proletariat, but because beer was more difficult to produce than moonshine and, therefore, less profitable, brewing declined significantly during the Prohibition era. The “Oxford Companion to Beer” states that of the 1,392 breweries in operation before Prohibition, only 164 remained after its repeal.

Individual states began passing laws prohibiting alcohol as early as 1855, and Colorado jumped on the state legislation bandwagon in 1916, three years before the 18th Amendment outlawed alcohol nationwide. One of the breweries that managed to survive the beer massacre was Coors. According to literature from Miller-Coors, when Colorado put the kibosh on brewing, Coors stopped producing beer and focused on a successful porcelain business and producing malted milk and near beer (less than 0.5 percent alcohol, which was still legal) to get by.

Despite limping through Prohibition with near beer and illegal production, and marginal success stories from Coors and some of its compatriots, brewing in the United States was destined to take another hit. Oxford points out that an entire generation raised during this time was accustomed to the sweet flavors of soft drinks and, therefore, rejected the more bitter Bavarian styles of beer. Lighter American beer was created post-Prohibition to cater to the demands of this new populace, and bolder, hoppier beers effectively died out in America for decades.

By 1979, smaller breweries were disappearing as industry consolidation occurred. The bigger breweries were cranking out mass-produced lager beer, some of which was so awful that the standing joke, according to one writer at All About Beer magazine, was that the brewing process included a horse. That year, a federal transportation law went into effect that included a rider amendment pertaining to home brewing. Due to an administrative oversight during the repeal of Prohibition, home brewing was still federally illegal. The amendment allowed for an individual to brew as much as 100 gallons of beer per year for personal consumption, 200 if the household contained two or more adults.

Bolstered by this official acknowledgment, home brewing boomed, spawning the advent of new small breweries and brewpubs to fill the niche vacated by their predecessors and jumpstarting the craft beer movement. So as you study the bottom of your next pint glass, consider how Prohibition severely altered and almost extinguished brewing in America and be thankful that most of you have never known the pain of going months or even years without a beer.

>> From the Fridge: Coors Batch 19

As one of the few breweries that survived the wreckage of Prohibition, Coors claims a long and storied history, and through serendipity and a dedication to the past, the big brewery in Golden has resurrected its roots and a taste of pre-Prohibition beer with its newest creation, Batch 19.

“In 2004, there was a flood in the Coors brewery and one of the brew masters rescued this archive book, this log book of recipes,” said Katie Cowan, brand manager for Batch 19. “As he was looking through, he said, ‘These recipes could have been lost forever. I want to look at it and play with it and see what these recipes are all about.’”

That brewer was Keith Villa, better known as the founder of the Blue Moon Brewing Co., also under the Coors umbrella. Villa took a look at one recipe in particular, and that was the foundation for Batch 19, Cowan said.

“We wanted to see what beer was like before Prohibition,” Cowan said. “The thing that inspired him was that we had this hidden gem that was lost, forgotten and rediscovered.”

Pre-Prohibition beer was bolder in flavor and higher in alcohol content than mainstream beers today, Cowan said. Villa tried to match the original recipe as closely as he could with modern ingredients when he created Batch 19. The beer is still sessionable, with some herbal and black currant notes and a slightly higher ABV at 5.5 percent.

So grab a bottle of Batch 19 and celebrate the repeal of Prohibition this week with a ghost of beers past.

Krista Driscoll
Hophead
Vail Daily Weekly

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