Brewing During Prohibition
We all know that Prohibition was a failure and that the law did not stop people from drinking various forms of alcohol. Much of this was consumed in the so-called speakeasys and was often of dubious quality. But many just wanted the beer they had loved and concluded that the only way to obtain it was to brew it at home. Many such persons had limited space and could use only utensils at hand. Even if they could obtain any malt, the logistics of all-grain brewing were beyond them. So, of course, they turned to brewing from malt extract. Many breweries, at the time unable to produce beer, sought other ways of staying in business. Non-alcoholic beer never really seemed to catch on so some turned to things like ice cream, ice production, sodas, and root beer. And a good many breweries turned to manufacturing malt extract, which readily lent itself to production on brewing equipment.
Some of these were the usual suspects – Anheuser-Busch, Miller, Coors, Pabst, Schlitz, and so on. But there were many others around the country, some using their brewery’s name, others using various trade names. The production of malt extract was legal because it could be sold for use by confectioners and bakers. Its use in homebrewing was not legal.
In 1920, shortly after the infamous Volstead Act became law, a commissioner of the Bureau of Internal Revenue stated that homebrewing was illegal, even if the beer was consumed solely by the family in their home. Shortly afterwards, a Hartford, Connecticut, newspaper reported that the Bureau of Internal Revenue was planning a crusade against homebrewing, although it did not say just how it would accomplish such a difficult task.
The previous statement by the commissioner had said that it was illegal to sell brewing ingredients for homebrewing particularly if the containers carried labels with beer making formulas. But the brewers continued to produce and sell malt extracts and there were even other companies that had not been brewers who were advertising and selling such products. Mostly, the advertisements said nothing as to how such products were to be used — they were complying with the law but with their tongues in
their cheeks.
There was at least one Hartford brewery that flouted the law quite brazenly, namely Ropkins & Co. In an advertisement for their hopped extract, they referred to it as “Home Brew” and stated that their extract should simply be diluted with water and fermented. Yeast did not come with the extract but was said to be readily available from the retailers of the extract and dry goods stores in general. I do not know if Ropkins was ever raided by the Bureau of Internal Revenue and I wonder what sort of beer was produced using their no-boil method by inexperienced brewers with limited equipment. The beer may well have been of poor quality, but its drinkers would not have minded when it was the only beer they could get!
This raises the question of how homebrewers went about the process during Prohibition. That is a difficult question to answer as there is little in the way of sensible information on this — after all, homebrewers would surely not have kept records that would incriminate them if they were raided by the Bureau. There are myths of course, such as “Grandpa brewed beer in the bathtub” and “My father’s homebrew was so strong just one glass would knock you over.” That which comes under the heading of oral history is likely not worth the paper it is written on. However, I can throw some light on this, thanks to a book that has come into my hands courtesy of Ron Page, a now retired craft brewer, one of the pioneers in the Connecticut craft brewing industry. The book is titled Proceedings of the Company of Amateur Brewers and bore the legend “Privately printed in 1932 for the MEMBERS of THE SOCIETY.” The year 1932 was just one before Prohibition was repealed.
The Society was apparently founded in 1926 in Vermont; the number of members is not given. However, there must have been quite a few in order to fund the printing of the book. The reasoning for forming the society was that they could no longer obtain good beer. They implied that they could still do so in the early days of Prohibition, but because the racketeers moved in they could no longer find a decent brew. Therefore, brewing their own beer was the answer.
The language in the book is rather flowery and it includes a large section on “historical” recipes for various alcoholic drinks that is of little interest to us here. However, the section on “modern” brewing is more sophisticated with an emphasis on the use of a hydrometer and how it can be used to determine alcohol content of a beer. This part of the book also lists original gravities and alcohol contents of various beers, namely mild ales (1.055–1.072, 4.17–5.57% ABV), light bitters and ales (1.038–1.050, 3.81–4.61% ABV), pale and stock ales (1.059–1.077, 4.77–6.68% ABV), and stouts and porters (1.054–1.081, 3.9–6.14% ABV). Clearly, these figures come from a brewing text but the source is not named in the book.
The real meat of this little book, as far as we are concerned, is that it actually gives us three homebrew recipes. All use malt extract, so no mashing of grain is involved. Oddly, the second is exactly the same as the first except that it uses less salt, so I shall just note this and give the other two recipes in detail. Again, the description of procedure is in rather flowery language, so I have adapted it to a more modern form.
The Company Special
Ingredients
Water 5 gallons (19 L)
Malt syrup 1 can (3 lbs./1.4 kg)
Sugar 2 lbs. (0.91 kg)
Hops 4 oz. (113 g)
Yeast 1 cake
Salt 1 Tbsp.
Step by Step
Heat water in copper boiler to 100 °F (38 °C), remove label from extract can and pour contents into boiler and scald the can with boiling water from a separate pan. Stir contents of boiler until extract is dissolved then drop the can into the liquor until it is clean of extract (how thrifty!). Add sugar slowly with stirring and then add salt. Tie the hops in a cheesecloth bag and drop them into the wort; Cover the boiler with a lid with a hole in it and boil the wort for 20 to 30 minutes. Leave the wort to cool overnight, then remove the hop bag, squeezing all liquid out in it.
Next day dissolve the yeast cake in a cup of warm water. Strain the wort by siphoning through a flannel cloth stretched over the crock (previously scalded) or by squeezing a piece of sponge into the end of the siphon and covering it with a piece of silk. Alternatively, a professional strainer can be obtained from supply houses. As the wort runs into the crock, add the cupful of yeast; when all the wort has run over cover the crock with a cloth and place in an area kept at a constant 50–60 °F (10–15 °C). As the yeast head forms it is important not to skim it; simply leave for about 96 hours after pitching the yeast and it will be ready for bottling. This is done with 1-pint bottles, previously scalded and to which ¼ tsp. of sugar has been added prior to the beer. The bottles are then capped and kept in a cool place.
The author comments that the beer may be filtered (filters being available from supply houses) or fined with isinglass if desired. At any rate, the beer should be kept for at least three weeks before drinking it.
Note: There is also a recipe called The North Country Special, which has identical ingredients as to those for The Company Special except that only 1 tsp. of salt is used. The procedure is also the same, except that the yeast head is skimmed off each night.
The Company Special Recipe Reflection
The book promoted the use of a hydrometer, so it is surprising that no original gravities are given for these beers. At first glance we know the ingredients so we should be able to calculate them, shouldn’t we? Not so fast, Sherlock. How much extract is there in a can? I have found five examples obtainable during Prohibition; two of those contained 2½ lbs. (1.1 kg) and three of them 3 lbs. (1.4 kg). Two of the latter were Pabst Blue Ribbon and Budweiser, which were probably more widely available than the others. Therefore, I assume that our Company used 3 lbs. (1.4 kg) of extract. If I am right, the original gravity (OG) would have been 1.039. The smaller size can would have given an OG of 1.035. A caveat here: These numbers are based on the yield from modern extracts and I do not know if extracts in the 1930s were of the same quality. The latter might have had a higher water content and a lower malt extract concentration, in which case the gravities obtained by the Company would have been lower than I
have calculated.
I cannot even guess at what the final gravity (FG) might have been since the nature of the yeast is unknown — it may have been a bread yeast in which case we might expect it to have given a low attenuation. If so, then bottling after only four days would have run the risk of too much further fermentation in the bottles. If fermentation had gone to completion, the alcohol content would have been about 4% ABV for the higher-gravity version, or 3.5% ABV for the lower-gravity beer.
As to hop bitterness, this is even harder to calculate. We do not know what variety was used, nor its level of alpha acids. We do know that despite Prohibition, hops were being grown in quantity in Oregon, New York, and elsewhere in the U.S., but that was mainly for export, apparently. It is possible that they grew their own hops, but that is unlikely since they made no reference to hop growing in the book. We do not know in what state the hops were grown — they might have been quite fresh if they came from New York or more aged if they came from farther afield. Also, at that time alpha acid levels were generally much lower than is the case today, perhaps only 3–5% at best with the likely variety being Cluster or something similar. I am therefore assuming that a value of 3% and a utilization rate of 10–15% given a boil time of only 20–30 minutes. Therefore, taking the higher level of 15%, The Company Special would have a bitterness of about 27 IBUs. This may seem a little low by modern standards, but it is right at the level I have seen in standard beers produced in the period before Prohibition.
Now, a comment on sugar. The Company Special used sugar at the rate of 40% of the total weight of the grist, based on a 3-lb. (1.4-kg) can of extract. If it was a 2½ lb. (1.1-kg) can, it would have used 44% sugar. That is a rather high proportion and could mean that the wort would have been low in free amino nitrogen (FAN), which can result in a sluggish and incomplete fermentation, and in the yeast being unable to convert the diacetyl produced during fermentation so that there may have been a high level of diacetyl in the final beer. Adding yeast nutrient when brewing a modern version of this beer is a good way to ward off unwanted diacetyl associated with nutrient-deficient wort.
Further, this high level of sugar, since it is fully fermentable, would result in a rather thin-tasting beer. That would probably not have mattered to the members of the Company, since it was the only beer they could obtain, but would not be acceptable to most modern craft beer drinkers!
The Apartment Dweller’s Special
Ingredients
Water 5 gallons (19 L)
Malt syrup (hop-flavored) 1 can (3 lbs./1.4 kg)
Sugar 2.5 lbs. (1.1 kg)
Yeast 1 cake
Salt 1 tsp.
Step by Step
Boil 2 gallons (8 L) of water, no need for a copper vessel. Turn off the heat and add the malt syrup, sugar, and salt, and stir to ensure all is dissolved. Bring to a boil and shut off heat. Put 3 gallons (11 L) of cold water in the crock fermenter and add the contents of the boiler, stirring carefully. Break up the yeast cake and add it to the wort, cover the crock with a cloth and leave to ferment in a room at 50 °F (10 °C) for four days. Strain the wort through heavy flannel into another vessel, then siphon off into bottles, each containing a thimbleful of sugar. Keep for fourteen days before partaking of the beer.
The Apartment Dweller’s Special Recipe Reflection
If we assume for this recipe, above, that the can contained 3 lbs. (1.4 kg) extract, this beer would have had an OG of 1.043. As with The Company Special, we can only guess at what the FG might have been. This recipe includes an even higher proportion of sugar than in the previous examples, namely 46% of the total by weight. For this OG and an all-malt brew with a modern brewing yeast strain giving, say, 75% attenuation would yield FG of 1.010. With a grist containing 46% sugar, we would expect the OG to be even lower with a good yeast, but we do not know what was the quality of the yeast used by the Company.
While neither of these beers may be what we’d generally reach for, the information in them is quite interesting as a way to reflect on how our ancestors would have gone about homebrewing when there were no other options for beer.
