Drinking History: An Introduction

Food and drink are evocative memory generators that can help us relive past experiences. Furthermore, old recipes can help us experience the lives of our ancestors. It has become fashionable to drink beers that are brewed from old recipes. In a sense, what we are doing is drinking history. In our travel explorations, both physically and temporally, we endeavor to make connections with other cultures, our memories or our heritage. In many ways it is a natural response to the globalized food and beverage world of the early 21st century.

Growing up in Louisville there were often a number of bars around that would display Oertels ’92 signs. It was a local brewery that was long out of business by the time I was old enough to try beer. I often wonder what the beer taste like (I understand that it would have been, most likely, disappointing). There is a connection, in my mind, between the history of Louisville and Oertels. Many of the neighborhood “beer joints,” as my grandparents referred to them, proudly displayed the name of the tavern on beer’s logo. Although my grandparents occasionally imbibed, the so-called beer joint on the corner was a source of great consternation. No doubt it was contrary to their German-American belief in the essential necessity of consistent work as they cornerstone to success and salvation. Yet, at the same time, drinking beer was a part of their German heritage. 

Concerns about alcohol became prevalent as industrialization and the modern world began to take hold. Most of these concerns were focused on the working class. Reformers were concerned that workers would not be able to adequately perform their jobs if they imbibed too much during their off-hours. If too many workers resorted to alcohol use, then factories would not run at peak efficiency, or at worst stand idle. Thus, one of the motivations to limit access to alcohol was economic in nature. In the United States, a dalliance with prohibition reset the brewing history of the country. Prior to the First World War there were over a thousand breweries that dotted the country. Anti-German sentiments and proposals by the Anti-Saloon League for a ban on the sale of grains to brewers and distillers, helped to cut the number of breweries by half within the first months of the war. Beer became synonymous with treason in the United States because the public thought most beer was from Germany. No one mentioned the beer from Belgium or Ireland during this time.

A water fountain, in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware,
placed by the Women's Christian Temperance Union
during prohibition in 1929.

The introduction of prohibition, through constitutional amendment, shuttered most of the remaining breweries across the United States. The emergence of a temperance movement in the late nineteenth century by the puritanical impulse meant that between 1920 and 1933, alcohol was not allowed to be sold. This had a devastating effect on American beer production and, in many ways, reset the history of American beer. Some brewers, such as Budweiser, made non-alcoholic beverages during this time. Budweiser was called Bevo, but when you are on tour at the Budweiser factory do not ask any questions about it. You get a polite, no comment and the tour moves on.

As with many families, there are vignettes about life during prohibition. My grandmother tells a story about her father in upstate New York. One night, while she was staying with him, a police officer came to the door and took her father into town. It turns out that there was a federal agent in town and the local law enforcement agency needed to demonstrate its effectiveness in enforcing prohibition. Apparently my great-grandfather helped to stage a bootlegging operation, was arrested in front of the federal agents, and when the agents left town, was released.

Following the lead of the United States, and with the help of American Dry forces, New Zealand nearly instituted Prohibition in 1919.  In April 1919 a national referendum on prohibition yielded 49% of the vote to prohibition. As the first votes were reported it appeared that dry forces had carried the day. It was not until after the votes of New Zealand soldiers who were still overseas were counted tipped the scales, was it realized that proposal was defeated. Today the referendum is referred to as the soldier’s vote.

In Britain, the emancipation of women after the First World War led to concerns about the effect of alcohol on females. The idea of returning to a romantic past, where women did not drink is ahistorical. Prior to the modern age, many people, especially in Europe, drank some form of alcohol because it was imminently safer to drink than water.  Yet in a 1926 article in the Manchester Guardian, a doctor complained that ‘girls’ had been consuming more alcohol and it “was distasteful to those who remembered the healthy lives that women lived formerly.”  The doctor went on to suggest that the increased partying among women was having an effect on the health and beauty. The article intimated that the partying without appropriate sleep led to “the lines that rightly belonged to the woman of middle-age” in girls as young as 20. In calling for a return to the Victorian Era, the article suggested that young girls had “acquired the habit of living for excitement so much so that they found themselves unable to break the habit and live a normal life with any prospect of happiness.”

Despite these concerns, the real problem with alcohol was, and is, the overindulgence. Early nineteenth century French thinker Jean Anthelme Brilat-Savarin, in his classic work on food, remind us: “Those persons who suffer from indigestion, or who become drunk, are utterly ignorant of the true principles of eating and drinking.” The culture of massive alcohol consumption obfuscates refined techniques and craftsmanship. It hides a legacy of sharing a drink and conversation passed from one generation to another. It diminishes a history of common people, who worked hard enjoyed time away from their labors.