Originally founded in Roanoke, Virginia in 1890, the Virginia Brewing Company went through some ups and downs, before finally closing in 1958. Except for its final years, when it was known as Mountain Brewing, it was always Virginia Brewing. It then lay dormant and the brand name unused until 1987, when the name was used again by a microbrewery in Virginia Beach

According to a New York Times article from September 1988, the brewery was “a venture begun by Johnathan S. Miller, the deputy assistant for management and administration at the White House who resigned in May 1987 after it was reported that he had cashed some traveler’s checks for Oliver L. North.” There’s also a short review of the old place by a Chicago brewer, Jim Hodge. His review is mostly positive, his biggest complaint being the size of the place, which he describes as follows. “I would caution those wishing to follow in my footsteps that the bar at Virginia Brewing is tiny; it has a total of 6 seats and don’t be surprised if you have to stand while drinking there.” Although he also mentioned they served all their beer in frosted mugs. He reports they had six of their own beers on tap, of which he sampled a “kolsch, an IPA, an ESB, a smoked ale called ‘the Brown Bomber’, and their Halloween pumpkin ale.” The brewer may have been Wolfgang Roth, reportedly from Bavaria. That incarnation of Virginia Brewing appears to have lasted until 1992.

Fast forward another sixteen years and a rumor that began two years ago is getting closer to reality. A press release recently indicated that a grand opening is imminent at the “ZeroPak complex in Winchester, Virginia. The celebration will feature craft beers, barbecue, and live music as the microbrewery welcomes the public to its new brewhall and event space.” They’ve also hired a brewer — always a good sign for a brewery — “John Hovermale, Jr., previously of Harpoon Brewery in Windsor, Vermont.” He’s also apparently a native of Winchester, which makes this job also a homecoming for Hovermale.

From the press release:

“I was intrigued by how this one town’s brewery was so much a part of the community and vice versa,” Hovermale says. “After returning from Europe I attended the Siebel Institute of Technology, where I studied brewing. After paying my dues working in the cellar of a brewery in Biloxi, I joined Harpoon. Now I’ve come full-circle, brewing beer in my hometown.”

It’s nice to see the new owners trying to tie the modern project to the historical brewery of the same name. There’s also some additional history at Rusty Cans, from their June 2006 newsletter.

The original brewery in Roanoke, date unknown.

Early labels from Virginia Brewing Co.

For our 15th Session, the topic remains personal, but instead of profiling another person, the goal is to hold up a mirror to see ourselves. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, how did you get started in this all? Our hosts, Boak and Bailey, want to know “the moment when you saw the light. At what point did you realise you were a beer lover / geek / enthusiast? What beer(s) triggered the conversion? Did someone help you along your way, or did you come to it yourself?”

I’ve actually written about this before, two years ago. And if you think I’ve been long-winded before, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. There’s a collective writing exercise known as NaNoWriMo, which is short for “National Novel Writing Month.” During the month of November, whoever wants to participate is challenged to write a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. That works out to just under 1,700-words per day. The first NaNoWriMo took place in November of 1999 with under two dozen friends of founder Chris Baty trying to write a novel in his apartment. Last year, it’s ninth, over 100,000 people gave it a shot. Of those, 15,000 people managed to finish writing 50,000 words, which is the equivalent of a short novel of around 175 pages.

I’ve done NaNoWriMo three times, and managed to complete it each time. I skipped last year because I was in Bavaria for almost two weeks in November, but the previous three years I spent my Novembers writing even more than I usually do. It was a terrific experience each time and one I heartily recommend. It made me a much faster writer. When you have such daunting deadlines, you learn to just keep going and write through any blocks. You get into a zone where it just pours out of you, akin to a runner’s high. And that’s proved quite valuable as I take on more and more writing assignments. Plus it’s a lot of fun just to see what comes out.

The NaNoWriMo website puts it like this:

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

So why bring this up? Because in 2006, I wrote a literary memoir about growing up with beer. It was called Under the Table and subtitled A Fictional Memoir of Growing Up With Beer. What I meant by that I wrote about in a foreword, but essentially I combined events and characters, moved some dates around and changed a few details in order to make the story work better, a perfectly acceptable practice in the genre. Since I was writing on the fly, I organized it into twenty-four chapters, a case of chapters. I chose two dozen beers that I remember from my childhood and used each one as a jumping off point to trigger remembering incidents in my life, similar to the way Proust did with pastry in Remembrance of Things Past. The story is filled with underage drinking, teen sex and violent alcoholic psychopaths. Almost all of it is true, but I’m not saying which is which.

The question of how it all started for me with better beer is largely answered in Chapter 24, Jazz in the Dark. The beers were Bass Ale and Guinness that introduced me to beer with flavor. I was stationed on Staten Island with an Army Band and many of the Manhattan jazz clubs I frequented in New York City in the late 1970s had begun carrying the two. They were as different as night and day from the regional lagers that all tasted the same I had grown up on. They were the catalyst that drove me to learn more about beer and discover what else beer could be. That was exactly thirty years ago and I’ve never looked back.

The whole novel is online if you’re feeling really bored or have a long wait ahead of you in the emergency room. Be warned, it is a rough draft, literally written in one take — extemporaneously — eighteen months ago. At the end of November 2006, I crossed the finish line at 55,622 words. But although I met the challenge of 50,000 words in thirty days, I had stopped in the middle of the second to last chapter. It’s hard to explain, but once the peer pressure and self-imposed routine has ended I’ve found it near impossible to keep going on December 1. But that was okay, because there was only one person who really wanted me to finish it. Shaun O’Sullivan, from 21st Amendment, got pneumonia that same November, and was stuck at home, bored. So he ended up reading — and apparently enjoying — Under the Table. He continued to pester me for months afterwards to finish the last two chapters and it became a running gag between us. So Shaun, I’m happy to tell you the wait is over and it’s finally done, or at least the first draft is.

Since this is a post about ourselves, I pulled out this old label. It’s for a private label brand we were developing at Beverages & more shortly before I left the company. It wasn’t my idea. The VP of marketing, who himself was a Brit, came up with it and the plan was to have a line of English-style ales to complement some of the others we were working on, like Coastal Fog, Brandenburg Gate and Truman’s True Blue. I guess he thought my name sounded sufficiently English. The initial styles were to be an IPA and an ESB. Anyway, it got scrapped but I still have a few labels left and they’re fun to see. I like the fact that not only am I bitter, but Extra Specially Bitter. That’s me, alright. To read Under the Table, follow this link to the home page. You can either just scroll down as you read or use the chapter numbers in the sidebar to move from chapter to chapter. I confess I’m more than a little nervous that it’s too self-indulgent or just plain crap, but you only learn by doing and this is definitely me just going for it and giving it a try. If you do actually give a read, even just part of it, please let me know what you thought. But please do go easy on me. Not only is it as rough a draft as I could imagine, but it’s very personal, too. Constructive criticism is always appreciated but let’s not be too insulting or harsh. This is my life we’re talking about, after all. My life with beer. Cheers!

I stumbled upon what sounds like an interesting read, even without the beer angle. The book is Unmarketable by Anne Elizabeth Moore. In it, she apparently examines underground marketing. The full title, which perhaps gives more clues, is Unmarketable: Brandalism, Copyfighting, Mocketing, and the Erosion of Integrity.

From the publisher’s website:

For years the do-it-yourself (DIY)/punk underground has worked against the logic of mass production and creative uniformity, disseminating radical ideas and directly making and trading goods and services. But what happens when the underground becomes just another market? What happens when the very tools that the artists and activists have used to build word of mouth are co-opted by corporate America? What happens to cultural resistance when it becomes just another marketing platform?

Unmarketable examines the corrosive effects of corporate infiltration of the underground. Activist and author Anne Elizabeth Moore takes a critical look at the savvy advertising agencies, corporate marketing teams, and branding experts who use DIY techniques to reach a youth market—and at members of the underground who have helped forward corporate agendas through their own artistic, and occasionally activist, projects.

Sounds interesting enough, and Mother Jones gives it a decent review. But what initially caught my attention was a reference to Pabst Blue Ribbon in the review at the wonderful Powell’s book store in Portland, Oregon.

From the Powell’s review:

Since the early 1970s, sales of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer had plummeted steadily. Then, in 2002, the beer became the beverage of choice in hipster haunts everywhere. Sales rose 5.4% that year, followed by a 9.4% increase in supermarket sales in the first quarter of 2003. Marketwatchers initially scratched their heads at this sudden and inexplicable uptick. The beer hadn’t been actively advertised in years, but that’s precisely what worked in its favor. With ads from the competition (typical T&A showcases, burping frogs, and the ubiquitous catchphrase “Wassup?”) as foils, PBR was automatically imbued with an anti-corporate aura that couldn’t be bought.

Except that it was.

Interesting. Conventional wisdom has always been that retro hipsters latched onto PBR because of its anti-hipness and that Pabst was as surprised as everybody else by it’s sudden surge in sales. If, in fact, Pabst launched a quiet underground campaign that’s a much different, and some might say, sinister picture. I think I may have to see if my library has a copy of that.

This is only slightly off topic, another one of my little tangents, if you will. This is a transcript of a small part of my favorite stand-up comedian’s rant on marketing and advertising. Naturally, it’s better if you see him pacing the stage and yelling into the microphone, but you can still get the gist of his point about underground marketing. It is available on DVD (under the title Bill Hicks Live) and I certainly encourage everyone who doesn’t know his work to watch it. But be warned, he pulls no punches and isn’t to everyone’s taste. I saw him at least a dozen times before his death in 1994. At every single show at least one person, and usually more, got up and walked out in the middle. And not because he wasn’t funny, but because he challenged people to think in ways that made a lot of them quite uncomfortable.

Advertising and Marketing

From Revelations, as written and performed by Bill Hicks at the Dominion Theatre in London, England in 1991.

By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing… kill yourself. No, no, no it’s just a little thought. I’m just trying to plant seeds. Maybe one day, they’ll take root - I don’t know. You try, you do what you can. Kill yourself. Seriously though, if you are, do. Aaah, no really, there’s no rationalisation for what you do and you are Satan’s little helpers. Okay - kill yourself - seriously. You are the ruiner of all things good, seriously. No this is not a joke, you’re going, “there’s going to be a joke coming,” there’s no fucking joke coming. You are Satan’s spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are fucked and you are fucking us. Kill yourself. It’s the only way to save your fucking soul, kill yourself. Planting seeds. I know all the marketing people are going, “he’s doing a joke… there’s no joke here whatsoever. Suck a tail-pipe, fucking hang yourself, borrow a gun from a Yank friend - I don’t care how you do it. Rid the world of your evil fucking makinations. Machi… Whatever, you know what I mean.

I know what all the marketing people are thinking right now too, “Oh, you know what Bill’s doing, he’s going for that anti-marketing dollar. That’s a good market, he’s very smart.” Oh man, I am not doing that. You fucking evil scumbags! “Ooh, you know what Bill’s doing now, he’s going for the righteous indignation dollar. That’s a big dollar. A lot of people are feeling that indignation. We’ve done research - huge market. He’s doing a good thing.” Godammit, I’m not doing that, you scum-bags! Quit putting a godamm dollar sign on every fucking thing on this planet! “Ooh, the anger dollar. Huge. Huge in times of recession. Giant market, Bill’s very bright to do that.” God, I’m just caught in a fucking web. “Ooh the trapped dollar, big dollar, huge dollar. Good market - look at our research. We see that many people feel trapped. If we play to that and then separate them into the trapped dollar…” How do you live like that? And I bet you sleep like fucking babies at night, don’t you?” “What didya do today honey?” “Oh, we made ah, we made ah arsenic a childhood food now, goodnight.” [snores] “Yeah we just said you know is your baby really too loud? You know,” [snores] “Yeah, you know the mums will love it.” [snores] Sleep like fucking children, don’t ya, this is your world isn’t it?

While attending the annual Bay Area Firkin Festival in Berkeley a few weeks ago at Triple Rock, I was again struck by this beautiful old ad for Genesee beer in upstate New York.

It’s a great play on words, and got me thinking about the phrase it’s based on: the midnight ride of Paul Revere, which in turn was the inspiration for another beer.

Anchor’s wonderful Liberty Ale, a favorite of mine, was first released today, April 18, in 1975. This date was chosen because it was the 200th anniversary of Paul Revere’s ride, as immortalized in the Henry Wadsworth Longfellow poem Paul Revere’s Ride, which begins: Listen my children and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year. Here’s how Anchor describes the beer: A special top-fermenting ale yeast is used during fermentation and is responsible for many of Liberty Ale’s subtle flavors and characteristics. Carbonation is produced by an entirely natural process called “bunging,” which produces champagne-like bubbles. Dry-hopping (adding fresh hops to the brew during aging), imparts a unique aroma to the ale. It is a process rarely used in this country today. As historians will tell you, the poem takes quite a few liberties with the true story, but because of it, Paul Revere is the only one of the three riders that night that is remembered. You can read an account on Wikipedia and there’s also ones on the Patriot Resource and Travel & History. But anything that inspires so fine a beer as Liberty Ale can’t be all bad, so let’s drink a bottle or draft of Liberty Ale tonight and toast Paul Revere. Cheers.

And to add a little culture into the discussion, this is one of my favorite paintings by Grant Wood, called The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, also based on the poem. Grant Wood is best known for his iconic painting American Gothic but there are some other great works in his oeuvre.

I stumbled upon this interesting write-up of the Beers of Martin Luther on a Lutheran website, Cyberbrethern. The post is based on notes from a talk given at a Men’s Breakfast at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Fayetteville, New York in April of 1997. Keith Villa of Blue Moon Brewing is thanked for “describing how the beers of Martin Luther’s era would have looked and tasted.”

The article discusses German beer in the middle ages, both homebrewed beer and brews made at Abbeys, and then speculates which beer of the time would have been Martin Luther’s favorite. This proved easier than you might imagine. Frederick Salem, in his Beer, Its History and Its Economic Value as a National Beverage (1880) notes, “Luther’s fondness for beer is well known, and on the evening of that eventful day at Worms, April 18, 1521, the Duke Erich von Braunschweig sent him a pot of Eimbecker (Einbecker) beer, to which he was specially addicted.” Michael Jackson also mentioned this connection in his New World Guide to Beer, saying “Luther received a gift of Einbeck beer on the occasion of his wedding.” The article goes on to suggest that Luther preferred homebrew over beer from commercial breweries, finding the latter to be “a curse for Germany.” But in an apparent contradiction, Luther “drank at home.” One biographer notes, “The German prophet became a patriarch, and the living room was dominated by his presence. He enjoyed his beer and had a great mug with three rings on it, one ‘the Ten Commandments’, the next ‘the Creed’ and third ‘the Lord’s Prayer’. He boasted that he could encompass all three with ease.”

But he was also a champion for moderation, and in sermon he gave in 1539, preached the following:

“It is possible to tolerate a little elevation, when a man takes a drink or two too much after working hard and when he is feeling low. This must be called a frolic. But to sit day and night, pouring it in and pouring it out again, is piggish… all food is a matter of freedom, even a modest drink for one’s pleasure. If you do not wish to conduct yourself this way, if you are going to go beyond this and be a born pig and guzzle beer and wine, then, if this cannot be stopped by the rulers, you must know that you cannot be saved. For God will not admit such piggish drinkers into the kingdom of heaven [cf. Gal. 5:19-21]… If you are tired and downhearted, take a drink; but this does not mean being a pig and doing nothing but gorging and swilling… You should be moderate and sober; this means that we should not be drunken, though we may be exhilarated.”

There is at least one Luther-Bier, a German-style pilsner brewed by Einsiedler Brauhaus. I’m not sure what that adds to the story, but I found in interesting all the same. As far as I can tell, it was a special release and there’s even a separate website for Luther-Bier, but there’s almost no additional information there. But you can see the special box it comes in an etched mug at a Wittenberg website. And I found this great quote on another church’s website: “We old folks have to find our cushions and pillows in our tankards. Strong beer is the milk of the old.”      — Martin Luther

At 12:01 a.m., 75 years ago, beer became legal for the first time in thirteen years, but in only 19 states. Though it would be eight more months until Prohibition officially ended (on December 5), President Franklin D. Roosevelt kept his first campaign promise by encouraging Congress to modify the Volstead Act and they passed the Cullen-Harrison bill, which FDR signed into law on March 23. The bill allowed the sale and manufacture of low-alcohol beer (3.2% alcohol by weight/4.0% by volume), along with light wines, too. For brewers, it represented a return to brewing and those that had remained opening making non-alcoholic products quickly retooled. Those that had been shuttered for over a decade had a harder time re-opening, but some did manage it. Ultimately Prohibition did irreparable harm the industry as a whole and less than half of America’s breweries did not survive.

The Brewers Association in Boulder, Colorado, is again celebrating the day, this time as “75 Years of Beer,” marking the 75th anniversary of when 3.2 beer could again legally be sold before the formal repeal of Prohibition eight months later on December 5, 1933. That should gladden the heart of historian Bob Skilnik somewhat, though he’s still hard at work making sure everyone knows the true facts. Less than a month ago, things were still not too good in the media or the blogosphere. Skilnik, writing on March 13. “It’s already started and I find myself this week screaming at my computer screen, the TV and a few newspapers, and as it now appears, beer writers, breweries, and at least one brewing trade organization. April 7 does NOT signify the end of National Prohibition. National Prohibition ended on December 5, 1933.” He also added, magnanimously that “Julia Herz (the Brewers Association’s Craft Beer Program Director) has, however, gone out of her way and changed their website info in an effort to get the history right. And for this, I tip my hat to her and the BA and their 75 Years of Beer celebration.)”

The Brewers Association this year cleverly called the celebration “75 Years of Beer” since this year is the 75th anniversary of 3.2 beer being legalized in 19 states. But that won’t work next year, because “76 Years of Beer” just doesn’t have the same ring to it. From their press release:

Historians note that Prohibition officially ended on December 5, 1933, with the ratification of the 21st Amendment. But earlier that year, newly-elected President Franklin D. Roosevelt took steps to fulfill his campaign promise to end the national ban on alcohol. He spurred Congress to modify the Volstead Act to allow the sale of 3.2 percent beer in advance of the Twenty-first Amendment being ratified. Thus on April 7, 1933, Roosevelt himself received newly legalized beer at the White House to toast what was the beginning of the end for Prohibition. In the 24-hours that followed, more than 1.5 million gallons of beer flowed as Americans celebrated.

“April 7th is a day to recognize the past 75 years of beer and the beer community’s contribution to American’s quality of life. The explosion of creativity and innovation by those who make beer is an American success story,” said Charlie Papazian, President of the Brewers Association.

“As we celebrate this significant day in the history of beer, we also recognize the incredible contributions beer has made to our nation and the economy over the last 75 years,” added Jeff Becker, President of the Beer Institute. “Today, our industry contributes nearly $190 billion annually to the U.S. economy and provides more than 1.7 million jobs to our nation’s workforce.”

“April 7th is the perfect time to highlight the entrepreneurial spirit and economic contributions America’s beer industry brings to our country. Americans now have access to nearly 13,000 labels of beer — within the safest alcohol distribution system in the world — because of the state-based regulatory system that was established 75 years ago,” added Craig Purser, president of the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA).

See, that’s a lot of angles that have little to do with repeal or the specific history of the event but which capture the spirit of the celebration, namely a holiday talking about beer’s virtues.

Another historian that I greatly admire, Maureen Ogle (author of Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer) tells the true story of the events surrounding April 7 in an op-ed piece in the L.A. Times.

She writes:

Today, we look back on Prohibition as an exercise in temporary insanity, but the 13-year experiment in sobriety was rooted in our quintessentially American faith that we can perfect the world. A broad cross section of people — men and women, urban and rural, young and old — supported the ban on alcohol because they believed that it would reduce crime, alleviate poverty, strengthen the family and nurture a more perfect union.

That lofty vision collapsed under the weight of reality. Prohibition spawned an underground economy devoted to making, shipping and selling booze. The officials trying to enforce it earned more from bribes, kickbacks and the resale of confiscated alcohol than from their meager salaries. The poison of such corruption permeated daily life. It undermined respect for the Prohibition amendment and, by extension, for the Constitution itself. Worse, Americans realized that in banning the production of alcoholic beverages, one of the nation’s largest and most heavily taxed industries, they had closed the spigot on a significant source of both jobs and revenue.

Maureen also has a number short stories having to do with April 7, 1933 on her blog that are worth reading.

Bob Skilnik also sent out his own press release in an effort to make sure the right story is told.

April 7th is Not the 75th Anniversary of the End of National Prohibition

“What was was once a trite beer history canard has become an outright lie,” says beer historian Bob Skilnik. “I can only hope that the apparent rewriting of U.S. brewing history is either an innocent result of poor research and not a shameful display of industry greed, just for the sake of a bump in beer sales.”

Bob Skilnik, author of “Beer & Food: An American History” (ISBN 0977808610, Jefferson Press, Hardcover, $24.95), argues that industry embellishments and poor research have distorted the true date of Repeal on December 5, 1933, which signified the revocation of the 18th Amendment and the enactment of the 21st Amendment and brought back the manufacture and sale of all alcoholic beverages.

“Congressional events leading up to April 7, 1933 allowed only the resumption of sales for legal beer with an alcoholic strength of no more than 3.2% alcohol by volume (abv), weak by today’s standards. Congress had earlier passed the so-called Cullen-Harrison Bill which redefined what constituted a legally ‘intoxicating’ beverage. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the bill on March 23, 1933. The bill’s passage took the teeth out of the bite of the Volstead Act of 1919 and raised the Prohibition-era legal limit of alcoholic drinks from .05% abv to 3.2% abv.”

“Bringing breweries back online on April 7, 1933 in states whose legislatures agreed to go ‘wet’ again gave a tremendous shot in the arm of an economy in the throes of the Depression. In just forty-eight hours, $25,000,000 had been pumped into various beer-related trades as diverse as bottling manufacturers to the sawdust wholesalers whose product lay strewn on the floors of saloons. For the first day of nationwide beer sales, it was estimated that the federal tax for beer brought in $7,500,000 to the United States Treasury.”

In the next few months, scores of states held constitutional conventions which led to the passage and enactment of the 21st Amendment, the first time a constitutional amendment had nullified another. It also gave municipal, state and federal governments the time to sort out the taxation and regulation of the entire drink trade, a legacy that continues.

On December 5, 1933, the true end of National Prohibition became a reality when Utah signed on to the Repeal amendment, satisfying the requirement of needing at least 36 states for the enactment of the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

I certainly admire his tenacity in trying to set and keep the record straight. As a history buff myself, I’m keenly aware that a lot of our history that we take for granted is simply wrong, for a variety of reasons. It’s quite remarkable to contemplate, but much of what was in our history textbooks is simply not correct, not exaggerations or off a little, but completely fabricated or with most of the facts incorrect. I think I’ve mentioned this before, but James W. Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me is a fascinating study on just how wrong is so much of what we were taught in school.

But I’m also a calendar geek (I guess we need a new word for that, too — perhaps holiday head or time bandit?) and the way holidays come about has almost nothing to with reality or the truth of when the events that are being celebrated took place. Christmas is the classic example, with their being no actual certainty when Jesus’ birthday was, and I’ve read accounts placing it in the spring, as well as other times of the year, too. Thanksgiving, if it ever really took place at all, was not when we celebrate it. The Declaration of Independence was actually adopted on July 2, and both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson believed that would be the date we celebrated American independence. It took two more days of making changes to the document which was then ratified with the modifications on the fourth. The rest is, well, history. You get the idea.

But there’s no law or ethic or whatever preventing a group of people from celebrating whatever they want whenever they want. What’s tricky is merely reaching a tipping point where enough other people agree to recognize the date as well. Mother’s Day, for example, is a relatively modern invention, with our version of it originating just after the Civil War, even though its roots are ancient. But different countries celebrate it on very different days. The actual date doesn’t really matter in the end nearly as much as the spirit of what is being celebrated. If we keep alive the notion that prohibition was a failed experiment that exacted a terrible cost on our nation, that legislating morality is a bad idea and you can’t really stop people from doing something that they find pleasurable, then who among us should be bothered by whether it’s remembered on April 7 or December 5? I realize the difference here is that we know with historic certainty that repeal did not take place on April 7, so we should definitely avoid calling it Repeal Day; that honor should go to December 5. But I see no reason not to also celebrate on April 7. With the neo-prohibitionists nipping at our heels once more with the vigor of a junkyard dog, setting aside two days each year to remind our critics that Prohibition will not work and celebrate how much beer enriches our lives, our economy and our society in positive ways seems like a good idea to me. Since it is the day that beer once more legally flowed after thirteen years, we can justifiably called it “The Return of Beer Day” or “3.2 Beer Day” or “Back to Beer Day” or even “New Beer’s Eve” as it was originally known.

To learn more about the history of Prohibition, here are some interesting links:

• Alcohol Prohibition Was A Failure, Policy Analysis from the Cato Institute
• Alcohol, Temperance & Prohibition, from Brown University
• April 7 is NOT the 74th Anniversary of the End of National Prohibition 2008, by Bob Skilnik.
• April 7 is NOT the 74th Anniversary of the End of National Prohibition 2007, by Bob Skilnik, with an excerpt from his wonderful book Beer & Food.
• Prohibition: A Lesson in the Futility (and Danger) of Prohibiting, from the book Ain’t Nobody’s Business If You Do
• Schaffer Library of Drug Policy History of Alcohol Prohibition
• Temperance & Prohibition History, from Ohio State
• The Day Beer Flowed Again, by Maureen Ogle
• Thinkquest’s Prohibition — The “Noble Experiment”
• Wikipedia

The beer that made Milwaukee famous is set to try and do it again. Pabst Brewing, who owns the label, re-released Schlitz today in the brown longneck bottles using what they claim is the original recipe. Having had phenomenal success with Pabst and also recently re-released Primo, Pabst is looking to recreate that success with yet another nostalgic beer.

Schlitz used to be one of the most popular beers in America, but bean-counters in charge of the brewery in the late 1960s and ’70s introduced cost-cutting measure to the ingredients and the brewing process that let to floating particles in the beer. Consumer fled the beer in droves. Late in the 1970s Schlitz try to recover, but the damage was done and consumer confidence at nearly zero. In 1982, the Stroh Brewery Company in Detroit bought the brand, and it was later acquired by Pabst, who owns it today. Pabst is the largest contract brewer in the country, with sales of it’s not popular again Pabst catapulting it to the number 4 spot, where it’s been for the past several years. Currently, it’s only available in the Chicago area, distributed by Louis Glunz Beers. But if successful, expect to see the old Schlitz longneck bottles everywhere again. From the press release: Schlitz, long known as “The beer that made Milwaukee famous” and once the best-selling beer in the United States, makes a comeback today on the 75th anniversary of its return to Chicago following Prohibition. Pabst Brewing Company in Woodridge, Ill., which now produces the iconic brand, is re-launching Schlitz “Classic 1960s Formula” based on the original recipe and packaged in traditional “Brown Glass” — a packaging innovation that Schlitz introduced in 1912 to prevent light from spoiling beer before it can be served. Chicago is third in a phased re-launch of Schlitz that included Florida and Minnesota markets late last year. The initial roll-out of six- and twelve-pack varieties, priced comparable to other premium domestic brands, will be to select Schlitz accounts with a citywide expansion slated for 2009.

Pabst Brewing Company (PBC) is partnering with Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. in Lincolnwood, Ill. to distribute the classic Schlitz formula and has a longstanding and rewarding relationship with the beer distributor, based on Schlitz and other brands within the PBC portfolio.

Founder Louis Glunz I first supplied Schlitz for the 1893 World’s Columbian Expo in Chicago and 40 years later, his eldest son and successor, Louis Glunz II, tapped the first kegs of Schlitz when they arrived by train in Chicago on April 7, 1933. On that date, the Volstead Act was modified allowing the sale of 3.2 percent beer in advance of the ratification of the 21st Amendment which repealed Prohibition. The Brewers Association reports that over 1.5 million barrels of beer was consumed nationwide in the 24-hours following what was the beginning of the end of Prohibition!

Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. has since served as a Schlitz bottler for many years and has continued to distribute Schlitz in spite of the brand’s losing its “Gusto” along the way to keep up with beer trends. General Manager, Jerry Glunz, attributes the steady decline in sales of Schlitz to a changed formula in the mid 1970s and packaging that was converted from a full package line to only cans in 1998. “We’re confident that a return to the original formula and the classic ‘Brown Glass’ longneck bottles will revitalize the Schlitz brand,” said Glunz.

Borrowing a page from their 120-year history, representatives of Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. will deliver the first coveted cases of Schlitz “Classic 1960s Formula” this afternoon from a replica of its original horse-drawn wagon. The route through Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood includes two old Schlitz tied-houses, Schubas Tavern and Southport Lanes & Billiards, as well as Cardinal Liquors, 1000 Liquors, Chicago Brauhaus, Sheffield’s Bar, The Long Room, Simon’s Tavern, the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, and Glunz Bavarian Haus. The product will also be available at Louis Glunz’s original shop, since renamed The House of Glunz, at Wells and Division Streets in Chicago’s Old Town.

“Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. introduced Schlitz to Chicago and we’re excited to work with them to re-launch the original formula,” said Brad Hittle, chief marketing officer of Pabst Brewing. “Their heritage with Schlitz is unsurpassed among beer distributors across the country.”

“We are delighted about the comeback of Schlitz, the brand that brought us to the dance,” said Jack Glunz, president of Louis Glunz Beer, Inc. “The ‘Classic 1960s Formula’ is just as we remember from the heydays, a perfect balance between full-flavor and easy drinking with ‘just a kiss of the hops.’ This re-launch is a tribute to my grandfather’s legacy!”

According to Kyle Wortham, senior brand manager for Schlitz, the classic taste profile of Schlitz “Classic 1960s Formula” is the result of research by Pabst Brewmaster, Bob Newman, who was named the 2006 and 2007 Brewmaster of the Year at the Great American Beer Festival. “Bob tracked down and interviewed retired Schlitz brewhouse employees and others to recreate the classic taste,” explained Wortham. Mr. Glunz, who also provided access to Schlitz marketing materials in his company’s archives, was among those interviewed.

In addition to a return to the original taste profile, dedicated to those who miss the full-bodied Schlitz as they knew it, Wortham said that the classic formula will feature heritage-inspired packaging and old-school attitude to reinforce the values that resonate with guys who remember the 1960s. A new print and outdoor advertising campaign includes imagery from that era and suggests that the intended drinker go back to a formula from a time when values mattered: “the cars were cooler, the athletes didn’t cheat, and the beer was better.” Marketing support also includes a new website, www.schlitzgusto.com, public relations, and tasting parties.

“Schlitz coined the phrase ‘Go For The Gusto,’ and we intend this campaign to reach beer drinkers where they live and remind them of some of the best times of their lives when even the beer tasted better,” said Wortham. “We’re setting the stage for a significant comeback.”

If you’re as much of a history buff as I am, you’re no doubt aware that HBO is currently airing a seven-part miniseries on John Adams, based on the popular Pulitzer-winning book of the same name by David McCullough. I confess I haven’t watched it yet. It’s building up in my Tivo queue so I can watch it all at once. I also didn’t read the book, though I’ve read McCullough’s 1776 and plenty of other books about the same period in history. I’ve always been fascinated by that time in our history, not least of which because my ancestors came to Pennsylvania from Switzerland in the early 1700s. The son of my original descendant in America—at least on my mother’s side—even fought in the war before returning to take over the family farm near what today is Bernville, Pennsylvania.

Samuel Adams, as portrayed by Danny Huston in the new HBO miniseries John Adams.

But what’s interesting about the new series is not about John Adams, but what is being said about the portrayal of his cousin, Samuel Adams. In my own reading, I recall him being portrayed as totally committed to the cause of revolution—to the point of obsession—and that he worked tirelessly toward that end. My memory is that he was beloved by his friends, though not everyone thought his methods (he was notoriously unwilling to compromise or negotiate) to be the best approach. I believe it was Samuel who got John Hancock, one of the richest men in New England, involved in the revolutionary cause and, eventually, his now more famous cousin John. When he was chosen to be represent in the first Continental Congress his friends got together and bought him a new suit, because he cared so little for his own appearance. The fact that he later receded into the background of history is a shame, because apparently he was very instrumental in bringing about our independence from England. It’s quite possible that without the Boston Beer Company using him on their beer labels, he might even be less well-known today than he already is. But I’m sure there are many such men whose early efforts have been overshadowed by the politicians who signed the Declaration of Independence and hammered out the Constitution. Those are the people we tend to remember as our founding fathers.

But according to some reviews, Samuel Adams is portrayed as “little more than a common thug whose idea of a good time is watching British dudes get Gatoraded with tar” and as “a leering, ranting, even dangerous fanatic … the very image of the corrupt urban politician.” Another reviewer says Samuel is “a character who seems at once both sinister and benign” and wonders when he’ll “finally give the others a taste of that new ale he’s been raving about?”

But Jeremy A. Stern, a historian writing on the History News Network, tells a different tale. His article, entitled What’s Inaccurate About the New HBO Series on John Adams, points out a number of inaccuracies from the first episode alone, before launching into his Sam Adams defense.

Most egregious, however, is the all-too-typical depiction of Samuel Adams, often a symbol for these mistrusted early years of the Revolution, as a leering, ranting, even dangerous fanatic. Samuel may be the most misunderstood figure of the Revolutionary generation, still generally regarded as a disingenuous, scheming, unprincipled and Machiavellian rabble-rouser, manipulating the mobs and fomenting disorder for sinister purposes — the very image of the corrupt urban politician. It is an image straight from the words of his enemies, fostered and perpetuated by neo-Tory historians such as Hiller Zobel, and so deeply ingrained in the assumptions of scholars that few have even questioned it. (The notable exception is Pauline Maier, whose 1976 article, “Coming to Terms with Samuel Adams,” in the American Historical Review and 1980 book, The Old Revolutionaries: Political lives in the age of Samuel Adams, should have thoroughly discredited these distortions decades ago, had her arguments received the attention they deserve.) In reality, none other than John Adams, notorious for rarely praising anyone, wrote of his cousin Samuel with frank admiration — except to note his own superior legal knowledge — and was particularly aware of Samuel’s distaste for violence: “[Samuel] Adams is zealous, ardent and keen in the Cause, is always for Softness, and Delicacy, and Prudence where they will do, but is stanch and stiff and strict and rigid and inflexible, in the Cause …. Adams I believe has the most thorough Understanding of Liberty, and her Resources, in the Temper and Character of the People, tho not in the Law and Constitution, as well as the most habitual, radical Love of it, of any of them — as well as the most correct, genteel and artful Pen. He is a Man of refined Policy, stedfast Integrity, exquisite Humanity, genteel Erudition, obliging, engaging Manners, real as well as professed Piety, and a universal good Character, unless it should be admitted that he is too attentive to the Public and not enough so, to himself and his family” (in John Adams’s diary, Dec. 23, 1765).

A portrait of Samuel Adams by one of the most well-known artists of the time, John Singleton Copley, painted around 1774, two years before the events in episode one of the HBO miniseries, when he would have been 50 years of age. Today it hangs in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Certainly, this testimony to Samuel’s ‘gentility’ is absent from the HBO program, which shows him practically as a dockyard thug – and yet at the same time ironically suggests that he is rich, and thus at leisure to pursue his devious wiles. This contradictory claim ignores John’s actual worry about Samuel’s neglect of himself and his own: Samuel was in fact in constant financial trouble, often dependent on the charity of his friends. Praise for Samuel’s character went beyond Massachusetts. In 1819, Thomas Jefferson, who had no reason to polish Samuel’s record, wrote almost as fulsome a tribute: “I can say that he was truly a great man, wise in council, fertile in resources, immoveable in his purposes.”

In the Boston Globe’s own condemnation of the series’ inaccuracies, they also mention a local historical researcher, James Bell, and his blog, Boston 1775. He, too, has posted a raft of inaccuracies not only about the miniseries itself, but specifically about Samuel Adams.

There’s more, too, both by Stern and Bell, but I’ll let you read that at your leisure, if you’re interested. Suffice it to say that historical dramas are almost always riddled with inaccuracies, that’s certainly nothing new. Usually, the excuse is something like “dramatic license” or “pacing” or some other story-driven nonsense. Of course, people watch history shows like this expecting them to be accurate, so I think it’s doubly bad when they’re not. But accepting that it’s just entertainment is harder to justify when you realize that HBO sent out leaflets to 10,000 teachers with “John Adams” agitprop urging them to show it to their classes. Of course, history textbooks are already riddled with mistakes, inaccuracies and propaganda, so maybe it doesn’t matter (for a wonderful book on this subject, see James W. Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me). But it still seems weird that a Pulitzer Prize winning novel would be so compromised, but such is the way of the entertainment business. I’m thirsty now. Who wants to join me for a Samuel Adams Boston Lager.

Here’s a fun project. Admittedly, it wouldn’t work very well in a lot of places, but it’s ideal for Montana. Journalist Bill Schneider has set out to visit and write about every brewery in Montana. His column begins today in the New West, which styles itself as the “Voice of the Rocky Mountains.” His first stop is Lewis & Clark Brewing in Helena and he also provides a good overview of his plan. The fact that there are only around seventeen breweries in the state helps, but it’s still a fun and worthwhile endeavor.

This month’s online version of The Scientist magazine has an interesting historical piece entitled Beer, and the Biochemists Behind It. Despite beginning with the now discredited Franklin beer quote, the article is a nice overview of brewing science historically and talks about Charlie Bamforth’s advocacy on behalf of beer, too. I love the assertion that because of beer’s 8,000-year heritage, it may be “quite possibly the world’s oldest biotechnology.” I’d like to see brewers start saying, when asked what they do for a living, respond casually, “oh, I’m in biotech.”

Day two of my Philly Beer Week trip began with a walking tour of the Old City part of town with beer historian Richard Wagner, who runs the fabulous Pennsylvania Brewery Historians website. He took us around to places with historical significance, both beerwise and otherwise.

The Liberty Bell, with Independence Hall across the street through the window.

The Man Full of Troubles Tavern, built in 1759 and the earliest colonial pub still standing.

For more photos from my historical walking tour of Philadelphia, visit the photo gallery.
 

This doesn’t have anything to do with beer, but someone sent me a link (thanks, Cindy) correctly believing I’d enjoy it. In fact, it’s surreal, weird and perversely hilarious. Food Fight is simply the history of warfare since World War II told through food fights, with national foods representing each country, or as the Food Fight website put is.

Food Fight is an abridged history of war, from World War II to present day, told through the foods of the countries in conflict. Watch as traditional comestibles slug it out for world domination in this chronologically re-enacted smorgasbord of aggression.

They’ve also thoughtfully provided a cheat sheet listing all of the foods in the film and which nation they’re associated with. And since it’s war, expect a lot of ketchup. Enjoy.