this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
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Yeah, Prohibition killed all the beer we had and we did have good beer right up until then. And it's been a long road back. Those large US breweries are still far more interested in cheap ingredients made cheaply.
But you can find good craft beers scattered amongst the bad craft beers if you look. And home brewing is maybe more popular in the US than Europe, but I'm not sure of that.
You make a good point about prohibition, I guess that will have had a significant effect. Maybe there are more artisan spirits in the US now having been driven by people with secret stills making moonshine in that period. It'll be interesting to see where you guys go with the relaxation of marijuana laws. Maybe people will be home breeding new strains.
Oddly, moonshine and bathtub "gin" became quite the impetus for the popularity of cocktails, at least in the US. Since the added flavors tended to hide the rotgut taste of the illicit booze. And the loss of beer breweries had the effect of giving rise to ice cream parlors and soda fountains since saloons had to close. Plus as Minnesotan, I feel the need to apologize for the Volstead Act, as it became known, since Andrew Volstead was a Minnesota House of Representative and Chairman of the House Judicial Committee and was pretty instrumental in getting prohibition enacted. Scandinavian Protestantism (tm) is not a good thing by in large.