United States History of Beer
Native American tribes brewed beer in the lands of the United States prior to European arrival. One recipe was composed of maize, birch sap and water. The earliest record of brewing by non-Native peoples dates from 1587, and the first commercial brewery opened in the United States was at the Dutch West India Company of Lower Manhattan in 1632.
The brewing traditions of England and the Netherlands (as brought to New York) ensured that colonial drinking would be dominated by beer rather than wine. Until the middle of the 19th century, British-style ales dominated American brewing. This changed when the lager styles, brought by German immigrants, turned out to be more profitable for large-scale manufacturing and shipping. Lager was also preferred due to its longevity, while local ales of the time quickly turned sour and were a perceived risk to drink.
The lager brewed by these companies was originally based on several different styles of central Europe, but the Pilsener style, using mild Czech hops, pale, lightly roasted 6-row barley and often adjuncts such as rice and corn, gradually won out.
Steam beer, the first style of beer to originate in the United States, evolved in the San Francisco area during the 19th century. After Prohibition ended, theAnchor Brewing Company was the sole producer of steam beer. The company was near closure in 1965, whereupon Fritz Maytag, great-grandson of theMaytag Corporation founder, rescued the brewery and with it the steam beer style. Anchor has since trademarked the term “Steam Beer” and all subsequent renditions of the style are now termed California Common.
D.G. Yuengling & Son, commonly called Yuengling (pronounced “ying-ling”), is the oldest operating brewing company in the United States, having been established in 1829, and is one of the largest breweries by volume in the country. It is currently the second-largest American-owned brewery after theBoston Beer Company. Its headquarters is in Pottsville, Pennsylvania.
Best Brewing Co., Virginia Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, circa 1885
One of the earliest large-scale brewers was Best Brewing, a Milwaukee brewery built by German immigrantPhillip Best in the 1840s. It began shipping its beer to Chicago and St. Louis the following decade, first by ferry and eventually by rail, establishing an early trans-market beer brand in the United States. Other successful breweries of the era begun by German immigrants in Milwaukee included the Valentin Blatz Brewing Company,Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, and the Miller Brewing Company, owned Frederick Miller, who took on the brewery which had originally been owned by Phillip Best’s brother, Carl.
In St. Louis, a prosperous German soap maker, Eberhard Anheuser, purchased a struggling brewery in 1860. His daughter married a brewery supplier, Adolphus Busch, who took over the company after his father-in-law’s death, and renamed it Anheuser-Busch. Busch soon toured Europe, discovering the success of Bohemian lager, and introduced Budweiser beer (named after a beer brewed in the town of Budweis in Bohemia) in 1876. Anheuser-Busch, and its Budweiser beer, would go on to be the largest brewery and beer brand in the world. The company innovated the use of refrigeration in rail cars to transport its beers, which helped make bottled Budweiser the first national beer brand in the United States.
Detroit Police discover an underground brewery during Prohibition
On January 16, 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was enacted into law, creating the Prohibition era, wherein the production, sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages was made illegal. All legal American brewing came to a halt when Prohibition was imposed, though the earlier temperance movement had already reduced the number of breweries significantly. Only a few breweries, mainly the largest, were able to stay in business by manufacturing near beer, malt syrup, or other non-alcohol grain products, in addition to soft drinks such as colas and root beers. Production and shipping of alcohol was l