Upsetting Conventional Wisdom

But enough of the niceties; I found myself beginning to like her and such camaraderie with the enemy could not be allowed. I fired my first shot: how could the Europeans that settled the US lose their taste for beer? They did drink beer, Ogle admitted, but most of it was homebrewed for personal consumption as an alternative to the then unsafe water supply. Some ale was brewed commercially and sold in harbor cities almost exclusively to ships’ crews. Otherwise very little beer was produced, sold or consumed in colonial America. Instead, the settlers turned to fruit cider which requires a lot less labor at a time when they were more concerned with storing enough food for the winter than whether a particular milk stout might be just a little too sweet. Later, rum became the preferred tipple and never really gave beer a chance to catch on. In 1820 there were 1400 commercial distilleries serving the US’s 9 million citizens and only 200 breweries. I couldn’t deny that this made sense.

But the undeniable fact remains that the big American brewers severely cut their recipes with cheaper corn and rice. So, how did we get here? Ogle explained how the Germans that began arriving in the early eighteen hundreds brought their beer with them. The recently created Pilsner-style lager was very popular among the immigrants and breweries were soon being built to serve this demand. Later, when other Americans starting to enjoy this clear refreshing drink, the typical diet was high in meats and carbohydrates. The light beer provided refreshment and relaxation without being quite so filling. Brewers figured out that the lighter the beer, the better it sold. Adjuncts were required to get it lighter. During the late 1870s brewers began cutting the barley in their beer with corn and rice. These lighter beers sold even better and appealed to more drinkers than the all-barely brews. This, however, was not a supply side business decision. In fact, corn and rice were actually more expensive then than barley.