Some brewing history, Prohibition to Present

President Carter signed a law
legalizing homebrew in 1978.

American homebrewing has an interesting history. You have to remember that beer brewing, while an ancient art that stretches back to the dawning of civilization, it has only been re-legalized in the US since 1978. Though the 21st amendment to the constitution was passed in 1933 bringing an end to the 18th amendments prohibition of alcohol, there was an oversight in the accompanying legislation that, while legalizing home production of wine, left the act of homebrewing beer illegal. It was President Jimmy Carter that signed Public Law 95-458, which legalized homebrewing and went into effect in February of 1978. The only PDF I could find of the law can be found here. Section two of the bill covers the exemption of taxation on beer or wine produced for individual and family use to the volume of 100 gallons per adult, or 200 gallons per household of two or more adults.

Prior to prohibition, there were a ton of breweries in the US, peaking at over 3000 breweries in 1870. The year after prohibition ended, the number of breweries in the US was something around 700. These breweries made it through that rough 13 year prohibition by adapting their factories to produce other products. One of the major flaws of prohibition was that it couldn't make the products used to brew illegal; tubing, jugs, jars, and pots all have plenty of legitimate uses. Since the tools were there, many of these breweries adapted their lines and started selling malt extract for "baking." During prohibition brewers brewed from scratch, extract, or supplementing the alcohol content of the still legal "near beer," producing somewhere near the tune of 700 million gallons of homebrewed beer, about 60% of the volume of beer produced by breweries the year after prohibition's repeal.

While this is an intentional and controlled
infection of Brett. L. it gives you a
decent idea of what prohibition hombrew
might have looked like.

While I wish I could say that this era of bootlegging beer gives homebrewers a secret cache of protected knowledge to look back on, the truth is that the hobby, unlike wine making, just wasn't that huge prior to prohibition. Homebrew in this era was an easy and low effort way of getting drunk compared to distilling, and saved the brewer the risk of having a homemade still explode in their face. These people didn't have homebrew manuals, there were no published books, and any trading of techniques we limited to your closest friends and neighbors. As to be expected poor yeast quality, insufficient sanitation, and a general lack of knowledge turned most of this beer into foul and brackish brew.

With such a toxic collection of suds, it's no wonder that homebrewing didn't stay quite so popular after prohibition ended. American's flocked to breweries, and with the expansion of freight shipping systems, larger breweries began crowding out the smaller guys and becoming a staple all across the nation. Brewers like Bud, Pabst, Schlitz, and Schafer began crowding out the small guys and then each other. By 1980, the United States was down to 101 breweries. That's over 2900 breweries lost in 110 years of US history.

Fortunately for us, with the legalization of homebrewing the hobby began to pick up again. People experimented and talked about the hobby, they shared their tips and tricks, and eventually a decent body of knowledge was gained. Homebrewing manuals began getting published and enthusiasts began traveling throughout the world to learn from breweries that had been operating for hundreds of years. Microbreweries began to emerge around the country and the guys who knew what they were doing managed to carve out a niche for quality beer. American favorites like Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, Rouge, New Belgium, Dogfish Head, Brooklyn Brewery, and Boulder Beer Company are just a few examples of homebrewers going professional and helping the steady march of breweries being opened in the US. In 2011, there were 1940 breweries operating in the US, producing beer of unparalleled quality. The modern beer geek no longer looks to Europe for quality beers as the explosion of craft brewing the US has created enough beers of both unique and classic tastes to keep anyone from getting bored. Today, homebrewers, like many hobbyists, enjoy and unprecedented amount of information about brewing. The internet has enabled so many amateur brewers around the world to connect and trade ideas and practices that even professionals will get in on the action. Information you could have only learned by visiting a brewing monastery in Belgium or the entirety of the German Reinheitsgebot is a mere click away. It is a far cry from the dark ages of prohibition, and for that, I am a very thankful homebrewer.