ABSTRACT
The American brewing industry changed dramatically between 1865, the end of the Civil War, and 1920, the beginning of national prohibition of the manufacture, distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages. In this half century brewing became a very substantial industry in the United States, ranking, on the eve of the First World War, sixth in the nation in capital employed ($792,913,659) and eleventh in product value ($442,148,597). In 1865 American brewers manufactured 3,657,181 barrels (one barrel=31 gallons) of fermented liquors. The coming decades witnessed a steady growth in volume, peaking at 66,189,473 barrels in 1914, after which prohibition laws began to have a modest impact on the overall level of production (see Table 11.1, at end of chapter). In 1914 the 1,250 breweries enumerated in the census of manufactures employed 75,404 persons. Although the American per capita consumption of beer was lower than in Germany or the United Kingdom, beer replaced distilled spirits as the principal source of beverage alcohol in the American market during the 1880s. By 1900 the American brewing industry was third in size only to those of Germany and the United Kingdom.1
