This Day in Booze: Brew Year's Eve

Today is a very special day in history. No, it's not 50 cent wings at your favorite BBQ place. Nor is it your anniversary, which you unceasingly seem to forget. Today is a special day because it marks the end of Prohibition.

"Wait a minute?!? Didn't Prohibition ended of December 5th?" you ask. Well, not exactly. December 5th marks the the appeal of the 18th Amendment, with the ratification of the 21st. A great Amendment. My personal favorite. But how is it that Prohibition ended nearly 8 months earlier. It's all thanks to the Cullen-Harrison Act. The Cullen-Harrison Act was drafted by congress and signed by President Roosevelt in early 1933. This federal act modified the definition of "intoxicating liquids", and allowed the manufacture and sale of beer with less than 3.2% alcohol content by weight and certain light wines. On April 7th 1933, two weeks after signing the Act, the very first “legal” beer in 13 years was delivered to the White House, to commemorate the special day. Beer was finally able to be sold legally in 19 of the 48 states and the District of Columbia. Over 1.5 million barrels of beer were consumed within the first 24 hours.

That, my friends, marks the true end of Prohibition. Of course, not all types of alcohol were permitted yet, but you could still walk into a bar and legally order a nice cold beer. Unfortunately, not everyone was able to share in the celebration. By the time National Prohibition was enacted in 1920, many States already had their own prohibition laws in effect. When the 21st Amendment was ratified, the right to govern alcohol use was turned back over to the States. Many of those States would take several more years to repeal their own individual prohibition laws. The State of Mississippi held out all the way to 1966 before repealing their prohibition. Kansas, one of the first states to enact its own prohibition in 1881, disallowed the sale of liquor "by the drink" until 1987. To this day, you'll still find many dry counties when traveling through some of our more southern States (the Bible Belt). Hell! I was in Franklin County Alabama last year and had to drive two counties north before I could find a drop of legal alcohol. Note, I said "legal".

That is why we celebrate April 7th as the end of Prohibition. Because on that day, across much of the United States, people flocked in mass to any place they could find a cold one. In fact, there is one local Pittsburgh man who can honestly say he's been there to provide the great libation every step of the way. Angelo Cammarata, of Cammarata's Cafe in West View, holds the Guinness world record for the longest serving bartender. Mr. Cammarata just turned 95, and has been serving beer ever since 12:01AM that special day, when he poured his first beer at his fathers grocery store soda fountain-turned-bar. Surprisingly, he doesn't drink beer. His dad once told him "Beer is not made to drink, it's made to sell." However, Angelo does have himself a bourbon and coke every day, so I think we can let him slide.

This is the Beer Drinkers Holiday, and it deserves to be celebrated. The Brewer's Association, a national trade organization, has officially designated April 7th as Brew Year's Eve, and first celebrated it last year on the 75th anniversary of the end of Prohibition. So I don't care who you are, what you're doing, where you live. I don't care if it's at home alone, out with friends, or at your corner dive bar. You make sure you toss back a cold one today. 13 years of sobriety demand it. I for one plan on heading down to Cammarata's Cafe to get a drink from the "Great Pourer." Let's ring in year 76 with a bang!

What's that smell...?

... ah yes. Bullshit!

Home Made Bitters, CBS

I just got this in my e-mail box: Make Your Own Bitters. Sounds awesome, and I'm throwing down the gauntlet to my coauthors. Let us all make bitters, then compare when next we meet. And readers (...if any of you aren't co-authors) if you want to get in on this please let us know in the comments. 

I went out to the CBS meeting again last night and it did not disappoint. There were some awesome homebrews- the Dortmunder Export was my favorite, with the Ginger Honey Wheat a close second. No bad beers, though one was pretty licorice-tastic. My mild went over OK and the Scottish 70/ was palatable. I met the new brewer from Flossmor and talked with the GI guys, pretty fun. Had a ton of commercial beer, most of which blends together. A great organization that serves Chicago well. Overall about a dozen homebrewers (maybe more) and about 50 commerical beers to try.

Then I drank the dregs of what was left, scored 2 free empty growlers, hit the bar, and drank one more ill-advised pint (3-Floyds Mild, which is hoppier than most IPAs). I should have had the 21st Amendment Session Ale on cask, but in my drunken state the 3.2% ABV put me off. Foolish, as I could have made it to work before 11am had I had that. Good times. If I ran into you at the bar and drunkenly slurred at you- sorry, by remembering it you clearly weren't drunk enough yourself.

Anyway-- consider the gauntlet thrown down. Start your bitters going, and we'll reconvene in a few months.

Late Post

Today I'm giving you the cookie and the cream- a late post and one hastily thrown together. Sorry. Its the first time in weeks I've actually hit my day, though my weekend 'tech posts' haven't been as erratic as usual ("YES THEY HAVE" screams BJames- who I can hear psychically across time zones; sadly I can also psychically feel Richard Dicks Rogering his desk chair during his coffee break, so these powers are both a curse and a curse).

Back to beer--- I went out and judged again last weekend. Great time and a Muffalatta sandwich that blew my mind. I did APAs, with not only a master judge but one of Chicago's many homebrew authors. I won't say which one, but it was quite the experience, despite my being unaware of who he was at the time and having never read his book. As usual I learned a lot from him and from the process, hopefully I also helped out the entrants.  The APAs were so-so, most missing the essential hop character that makes it an APA. Still, no gushers, no rings and overall a decent selection of beers. The other category was wood-aged beers. I like these 'freak beer' categories, which is a good thing since novices often have to pay dues in those categories. We had some good and very good beers that were aided by the wood (these won), some good beers harmed by it and some mediocre beers that used the wood as a distraction. I made a rye-IPA recently that could have used some distraction. It is all bottled, but I'm thinking of flushing a keg with CO2 and dumping all of the bottles into the keg, oaking the shit out of it and seeing if it gets more palatable. Phenols and over-oaking might work-- it can't get worse. The other suggestion has been to use it to cook brats. 

Back to the wood aged beers- it is a nice category for me as a novice because I get to see a range of base styles at one time- which requires some odd comparisons: is this porter a better porter than that triple and does the oak character help the beer? A nice process. 

As for other things happening here. It was a weekend of technical mishaps and corrections- starting with my keg fridge getting down to 28F, helping my buddy put his kegerator back together and ending with dropping my iPod in the gym toilet (shockingly it still works). This week I'm meant to be ordering bulk grain and a crusher for the first time (very exciting) and will be getting ready for a brewing series that goes Cream Ale, IPA, Barley Wine, the Cream Ale and IPA are testers / backups for my friend's not-wedding this summer, the Barley Wine is just to try doing.

That's all here- I might finally do a system post this weekend so I can draw people to the blog off the forums by having details of the mash-tun and build and other things. I also might add thermometers and valves to my boil kettle and a thermometer to my mash-tun.