National Brewing Museum - Potosi, WI

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noisy123

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I visited the newly opened National Brewery Museum in Potosi, WI last weekend. (A fun little excursion for anyone nearby). It was really eye-opening. Just examining old beer labels, bottles, kegs, adverts, etc... was really fascinating. The one thing you notice is that there was a lot more variety in beers, especially here in Wisconsin before Prohibition. There were weisses, bocks, Berliner weisses, ales, lagers, all made by 40 or 50 breweries right here in this state.

Did Prohibition kill all this variety or were there other factors? What lead to the rise of Bud (besides Anheuser killing all the jedis and converting to the dark side)?
 
IIRC, By the time prohibition was repealed, Hitler was coming to power in Germany, and there was a lot of anti-German sentiment in the US. The dislike of many of the German beers stemmed from that. It was nationalism at it's best.
 
You'll find a lot of great info on the history of American Brewing especially the rise of the BMC'ers in Maureen Ogle's fantastic book Ambitious Brew

Her website on the book is cool as well http://ambitiousbrew.com/

So is her blog...http://www.maureenogle.com/

She dispells a lot of myths that we beer snobs believe about why Budweiser is so popular. And other myths about brewing through US history.

You can als hear a great 2 part interview with her on Basic Brewing Radio.

November 30, 2006 - Ambitious Brew Part One
We learn about the history of beer in the USA from Maureen Ogle, author of "Ambitious Brew - The Story of American Beer." Part one takes us from the Pilgrims to Prohibition.

http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing/bbr11-30-06.mp3

December 7, 2006 - Ambitious Brew Part Two
We continue our discussion about the history of beer in the USA with Maureen Ogle, author of "Ambitious Brew - The Story of American Beer." Part two takes us from Prohibition to the present day.

http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing/bbr12-07-06.mp3
 
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