Akron Beer by Robert A. Musson MD

Author:Robert A. Musson MD
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2018-10-09T16:00:00+00:00

HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN!

Once Franklin Roosevelt was elected in November 1932 to serve as the nation’s thirty-second president, it quickly became clear that Prohibition’s days were numbered. Moral issues and politics now took a back seat to the economic realities of the Great Depression, which was now three years old with no end in sight, and Roosevelt recognized the potential economic benefits of resurrecting the brewing and distilling industries. Thousands of jobs would be created almost instantly, and the taxes generated on the new stream of revenue would provide a significant financial boost to the government.

Roosevelt took little time to act on the Prohibition issue; just one month after his inauguration, Congress proposed the Twenty-First Amendment to the Constitution (to this day, the only constitutional amendment that reverses a previous amendment) on February 20, 1933. When it was finally adopted on December 5, 1933, it legalized the sale of full-strength beer (up to 6 percent alcohol by volume). In the meantime, the Cullen-Harrison Act, enacted by the Congress on March 21, 1933, and signed by Roosevelt one day later, legalized sales of beer with an alcohol content of 3.2 percent, a level regarded as too low to be intoxicating; this act sped up the process significantly by taking effect on April 7, 1933 (this day is often referred to as “repeal,” although full Prohibition did not officially end until eight months later). Upon signing the legislation, Roosevelt commented, “I think this would be a good time for a beer.”

At midnight on April 7, a nationwide celebration took place as alcohol sales again became legal after more than thirteen years. The only problem was that beer and other spirits were not readily available to everyone, as the vast majority of breweries and distilleries had been dismantled. Only three breweries in Ohio had continued to produce near beer through 1933, and as their brewing equipment remained in place and functional, they were able to produce real beer immediately; in fact, all of the demand in the state was being supplied by these and several brewers in the Midwest. Also at issue was the fact that distributors, bars and restaurants did not yet have liquor licenses, so all of the available beer could only be sold directly from the breweries. As a result, all were swamped with customers, with available beer supplies being sold off within hours or days.

As soon as the Cullen-Harrison Act was signed in March, the Renner Products Company in Akron reverted to its original name: the George J. Renner Brewing Company. As one of Ohio’s three breweries that had remained functional, it was the first in the state to receive a license to legally brew 3.2 percent beer. As beer orders began to arrive in the first few days of April, the company placed several advertisements in local newspapers, thanking the public for their loyalty and interest in the company’s products. Another advertisement offered company stock to the public for the first time, in an effort to raise more capital for upgrading the plant’s equipment.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.