Evening Star Newspaper, March 12, 1933, Page 56

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MARCH 12, 193. 'This Beer Business What It Is All About The Ups and Downs of the Once Great Brewing Industry, and 4 Few Question Marks Regarding Its Future. T the stroke of 12, ¢n a never-to-be- forgotten night 13 long, “dry” years ago, jovial King Gambrinus was :ent into involuntary exile from the United States. Along with this beloved gentle- man, the patron saint of beer, named after Jan Primus, talented Belgian brewer of the Middle Ages, went his entire retinue of swing- ing saloon doors, foaming steins, powerful Percherons that pulled the heavy, keg-lgden beer trucks, noisy German street corner bands, plump, red-faced tavern keepers and genial male quartets. But King Gambrinus, who had received hom- sage in all the great nations of the earth, did not easily despair. He felt that on some not- too-distant day homo Americanus would be forced to call him back for a new coronation. And today His Royal Highness knows that his return to power is imminent, for he hears on every hand the voices cf dignified experts vying with one another in bringing to popular atten- tion many virtues of which he himself was ignorant. Two decades ago he heard them cry: “Take away beer. Industry will be speeded up and prosperity will be with us.” Sure enough, after the king and all his court to crime and, wonder of won the budget.” Almost the same arguments that were to banish the King were being voiced to hasten his return. foaming liquid are all wrong. - Even before the Pilgrims docked, some early and no ship set sail for America without a load of full barrels. There’s even a well founded legend which says that the Pilgrims never would have de- cided to land at bleak Plymouth Rock had not their supply of old English ale given out pre- maturely. The Mayflower might have gone on to Virginia or Maine, but no ale—no sail—and Plymouth Rock it had to be in order to brew & new supply. In the 1630s brew houses and taverns were springing up and laws were being enacted to see thet the brew conformed to high standards. The rih, however, brewed their own at home, just as they did in England, where for many centuries only the poor partook of the thin stuff sold to them by the monks and in the taverns. Nor can the Quakers be acused of being anti- beer in any sense of the word. William Penn, arch-Quaker of all time, loved the stuff. When he sailed up the stately Delaware from New Castle in 1682, his first visit was to the Blue Anchor Tavern, Philadelphia’s oldest, and, soon after, he built himself a private brewery near his mansion at Pennsbury. What really made Quaker beer famous throughout the Colonies—Pennsylvania was for many generations a brewing center—was the brewhouse of Anthony Morris. ODAY this very firm is not only the oldest brewery in all America, but also the oldest business house in continuous existence, having descended from father to son for eight un- broken generations. It is even older than the Bank of England, which dates back to 1684. In those days brewers were men of social and civic importance. The founder of Prancis Perot’'s Sons was an exemplary gentieman, Anthony Morris II, who cast in his lot with Penn's Colony in 1686. He is depicted with his cane and broad-brimmed Quaker hat in Benjamin West's famous picture of “Penn’s Treaty with the Indians.” A year later, Morris built his malt house and brewery in Philadeiphia. b “The Family Entrance.” In the old days every side street had a door for “bucket trade” or “rushing the growler.” In his will Anthony Morris II bequeathed to his son, Anthony Morris III, “my bank and 3 gk i s il Dr. Benjamin Rush, dean of Colonial phy- siclans, wrote America’s first treatise on tem- perance, advocating the drinking of beer. Sam- uel Adams, thc son of a brewer, himself be- came one because he admired both the beverage and the trade. Patrick Henry, serving as a tapster in his father-in-law's tavern, probably thought of the , “Give me liberty or give me death” - Even if beer comes back, this sight will not be seen again, for the brewer’s big horses will be replaced by modern trucks. Reproduced through courtesy of Life Magaszine. but in 1850 Wagner & Lauer, in Philadelphia, perfected lager and stimulated the industry. Four hundred and thirty-one breweries were working throughout the land, making 23,000,- 000 barrels of beer—18.000,000 of them brewed in Pennsylvania and New York. TRANGELY enough, the very first white male born in New Netherlands, Jean Vigne, opened a brewery near what is now Wall Street. The trade was highly aristocratic in the middle of the last century. The early beer barons of New York were the cream of the city’s elite—the Rutgers, the Kips, the Van Cortlandts, the Beekmans and the Van Rens- salaers. ’ - Later came the big “guns”—Adolphus Busch, lord of American brewers; George Ehret, as the German immigrants began coming the German national beverage increased in popu~ larity beyond any one’s expectatiots. Saloons spread; free-lunch counters sprang up; the handsome, strong horses of the brewers’ trucks vied in shining beauty. In the 80s beer threatened to drive out hard liquors. In 1914 beer was on the crest of the wave throughout the Nation, more than a giass & day for every man, woman and child. The 1,300 breweries raised hosannahs to the quale ities of beer. Came the war—and a new kind of propa- ganda, Take away the $1,000,000,000 that is invested in the ligquor industry and put it to work to win the war. Use the 100,000,000 bushels of grain for a better purpose. And horror of horrors! Who are the big brewers? All of them Germans, if not by bixth, then by descent. On January 16, 1920, the jig was up. Along with Scotch, rye and wine, beer went into ob- livion. But in the very first six months of enferce- ment every one of the problems of today came to the fore, Illegal purveyors sprang up in hordes and it was apparent that something was wrong. Experts estimate that without prohibition America would be drinking' three and a half times as much beer as it does today. Even the Anti-Saloon League admits that speak- 219,000 of them in the land, it is said. What will happen with the return of King