Beer from the 1920s to 1940s?

[DonMagee]

My friends and I are planning a party at our house. The theme being the the time period of prohibition (with the 40's tacked on for good measure of variety). We plan to serve food, mixed drinks, and beer from the period as well as decorate my basement bar as a speakeasy and of course make some beer correct for the time.

I was wondering if anyone had any beer recipes that would be period correct? These would not need to beer only beers popular in the US, but Europe would also be a fine location for finding beer recipes. I believe lagers were very popular right before prohibition, but I also remember reading brown ale was very popular in the 1920s.

Also, not beer related, if you have any favorite mixed drinks from the era, it would also help with my research.

 

[whitehause]

If you want period correct beer from prohibition, find the worst tasting thing you can and mash it.

Seriously....prohibition was responsible for some realllly bad beer and booze. Mixed drinks actually came out of prohibition because the booze was so bad the only way to make it drinkable was to mix it with something. The beer was made with almost anything that had starch. Corn, wheat, cereal,feed barley. There were very little hops because they weren't readily available, and everyone(including the law) knew why you wanted them.

I'm sure there were some good beers out there, but there isn't much record of them.

 

[DonMagee]

If you want period correct beer from prohibition, find the worst tasting thing you can and mash it.

Seriously....prohibition was responsible for some realllly bad beer and booze. Mixed drinks actually came out of prohibition because the booze was so bad the only way to make it drinkable was to mix it with something. The beer was made with almost anything that had starch. Corn, wheat, cereal,feed barley. There were very little hops because they weren't readily available, and everyone(including the law) knew why you wanted them.

I'm sure there were some good beers out there, but there isn't much record of them.

Well, like I said, it doesn't have to be beer that was served in the US. I assume there was still good brewing going on in other parts of the world? The idea is to just capture the spirit of the time, we can assume we are all really wealthy families who just had our beer smuggled in from overseas.

 

[Dan]

whithause's explanations makes a lot of sense. At first I thought he must be very, very old to know this. Maybe he is But I think he is on to something. We will never know because we were not even born then. I wouldn't bring out crap.. make your own drinks that taste good. Unless you are going for a true period feeling with crap beer and turpintine booz. Lighten it up and have fun. Make it like some old movie where everybody has a drink or five and smokes cigarettes and has fun..


Just my drunking ramblings.

Have fun no matter what you do.

 

[Squ1rrel75]

Serve all drinks in teacups and coffee mugs. During prohibition times speakeasy establishments often served "bathtub gin" in teacups and disguised their businesses as "tea parlours".

Patrons could be served hard drinks from a teapot and no observing officers or agents would be any the wiser... at least for a spell, until some sorry s.o.b. got jake-leg or went blind from drinking some god-aweful distillate made by some dimwit who couldn't be bothered to invest in an accurate thermometer.

fedoras, pin-stripes, flapper girls and tommy guns should be mandatory

 

[jiggs_casey]

Actually, I think the idea is pretty interesting. Desperate times call(ed) for desperate measures. I googled 'alcohol available during prohibition' and came up with this BYO article.

It made me wonder what I would come up with if a 2nd prohibition were enacted.

http://***********/stories/article/indices/17-brewing-history/844-homebrewing-during-prohibition

 

[whitehause]

whithause's explanations makes a lot of sense. At first I thought he must be very, very old to know this. Maybe he is But I think he is on to something. We will never know because we were not even born then. I wouldn't bring out crap.. make your own drinks that taste good. Unless you are going for a true period feeling with crap beer and turpintine booz. Lighten it up and have fun. Make it like some old movie where everybody has a drink or five and smokes cigarettes and has fun..


Just my drunking ramblings.

Have fun no matter what you do.

hehe....Not that old, but a bit of a History buff.
My Grandparents owned a big Tobacco farm in Mt Airy NC, so I got to here a lot of stories about the "extra income" crops they would produce and "process" in to a popular product of the time. They actually got in to raising bees at that time because some locals wanted a lot of honey for their "toast". Needless to say, Grandpa's house was a popular spot back in the day.

Anyway.....Bitburger, Kolsch, Belgians, and any Trappist (to name just a few) would be good choices.

If your ok with some UK or German beers, then there are tons of options.

 

[b-boy]

How about this - http://hbd.org/brewery/cm3/recs/13_30.html.

 

[unionrdr]

Here's a beer from that time made by a brewery owned by Al Capone; http://www.brewery.org/brewery/cm3/recs/13_30.html

 

[Calichusetts]

http://www.oldbeers.com/

Pretty Little Things is doing this project. They are very open and I am sure you can email them for the recipes or at least help with the formulation. They are literally brewing the exact recipe bills they have from this time, obviously with some tweaks to the measuring amounts and ingredients no longer available. I had a few of these, they are okay.