Happy National Beer Day! It was on this day, April 7, in 1933 that the Cullen-Harrison Act went into effect—the legislation that legalized the sale of beer with an alcohol content of 3.2% by weight (or 4% by volume), which heralded the end of Prohibition in the United States. This provided the stopgap measure until Prohibition was formally ended with the ratification of the 21st Amendment on December 5 of that year.

You might recall that I wrote a book on the history of beer in Central Oregon, and the entire second chapter is devoted to Prohibition. (It’s good! Buy a copy!) In my research, one of the local articles I came across in an issue of The Bulletin from 1925 was one that has stuck in my head:

WIFE NEEDED BEER, HE HAD TOO MUCH

Husband’s Zeal Disastrous—Raid Forecast In Dream

Too much devotion to his wife caused Louis Skjersaa to pay a fine of $150 in Acting Recorder R. H. Fox’s court today.

A local physician prescribed beer as a cure for an ailment from which Mrs. Skjersaa was suffering shortly after the birth of a child.

Skjersaa, in the enthusiasm of his husbandly affection, made a considerable quantity of beer—just how much at one time is not known but when Chief of Police Peter J. Hanson raided the Skjersaa home last night, he found 500 bottles of it there.

Mayor Fox, hearing Skjersaa’s story and its corroboration by the physician, decided that there was some justification for his possession of beer but not for having so great a quantity, fined Skjersaa $150.

“I dreamed that you cleaned out our cellar,” Mrs. Skjersaa confided to the police while they were carrying the beer from its hiding place.

The police were “cleaning out” the cellar, for in addition to the 500 bottles of home brew, they took away several boxes of empty bottles, two empty malt barrels and one that still contained a quantity of malt.

It took two trips with both of the police department’s automobiles to haul away all of the contraband articles.

[The Bulletin, September 12, 1925]

Several things to note here. One, that quantity of bottles! I don’t know what size those were—12 ounce? 16 ounces? Smaller or larger? Any way to measure, that is a lot of beer.

Then of note is the “malt barrels,” which I assume refers to barrels of malted barley—in other words, whole grains—but it did occur to me to wonder if this could also refer to malt extract syrup? It was quite common during Prohibition for homebrewers to use malt extract syrup, commonly available in three pound cans helpfully produced by the major brewing companies for “baking,” but I’d not heard of it available in barrels, so my assumption about grain stands for now.

Which puts Louis Skjersaa ahead of the curve when it comes to Prohibition-era homebrewing. But I still like this story so in honor of National Beer Day, the end of Prohibition, and celebrating our right to drink—and brew—beer, here’s a homebrew recipe for a Prohibition Ale inspired by Skjersaa:

Skjersaa’s Tonic

This recipe is loosely based on what we know about Prohibition-era homebrewing, which for a five-gallon batch of beer would have involved a three pound can of (likely hopped) malt extract, three to four pounds of sugar, possibly hops if none were in the extract, and either a packet of brewer’s yeast or (just as likely) bread yeast.

For this recipe, I’ve taken some artistic liberties with the base recipe, converting it to an all grain recipe, and dropping the amount of sugar considerably. I figure if this “Tonic” is for Skjersaa’s ailing wife, let’s refine it a bit while making it more palatable to modern tastes.

The grain bill roughly approximates what I figure the composition and color of malt extract syrup might have been in the 1920s. It should approximate modern amber syrup.

Stats:

• Type: all grain, infusion mash
• Batch size: 5 gallons
• Mash temperature: 154°F
• Original gravity: 1.043
• Final gravity (estimated): 1.008
• Alcohol by volume: 4.6%
• IBUs: 10
• SRM: 7

Ingredients:

• 4 pounds American two-row malt (66%)
• 0.2 pounds Crystal 40°L (3.3%)
• 0.1 pounds chocolate malt (350°L) (1.7%)
• [Extract version of this would replace these grains with 4.5 pounds of amber liquid malt extract]
• 1.75 pounds cane sugar (29%)
• ½ ounce Cluster hops, or similar heritage/heirloom variety, for 60 minutes (3.25 AAUs)
• Neutral ale yeast, or if you’re really feeling adventurous, bread yeast

Process:

Mash grains at 154°F to develop some non-fermentable dextrins to give this some mouthfeel and help account for the uncertainty in quality of malt extract; you could even go higher if you wanted. Mash for one hour then raise temperature to 170°F and sparge as you normally would.

Boil for one hour with the hops for the full hour as well—we’re looking for a bittering addition similar to what a can of hopped extract might have been like, but low overall IBUs. Feel free to get creative and throw in some finishing hops if you like (or even dry hop it). But I do mention “heirloom variety” meaning one of the older hops that would have been in use in the early twentieth century, like Cluster, or Goldings, Brewer’s Gold, Fuggle, Tettnang, and so on. Though really any hop could be used just for bittering purposes here.

Yeast variety doesn’t matter here, as long as it’s an ale yeast (or even bread). I’d opt for something neutral or English.

Now, if you’d like to try your hand at recreating a more authentic version, with the higher Prohibition proportions of sugar, try these for the fermentable ingredients:

• 2.8 pounds American two-row malt (40%)
• 0.14 pounds Crystal 40°L (2%)
• 0.07 pounds chocolate malt (350°L) (1%)
• 4 pounds cane sugar (57%)
• Or, for all extract, use 3 pounds of amber liquid malt extract

You’ll get a higher original gravity of around 1.056 with this recipe, and you can expect a lower final gravity as well as there is a lot more sugar to ferment out which will dry this out. Expect a beer around 6.25% ABV.

If you want some further reading on brewing Prohibition era beer recipes, check out this thread on HomebrewTalk, and this Prohibition Ale recipe on Instructables.

And let’s raise a glass of beer today to toast National Beer Day and the end of Prohibition!