good conditioned as a puppy. >> in the suds, staggerish, he carries too much sail, stewed, soaked, soft, been too free with sir john strawberry. >> double tongued, swallowed a tavern token, makes virginia fence. >> does that sound like fun? yay! all right. >> thank you, volunteers. >> thank you very much. >> it was so hard to get them here from the 18th century. spared no expense. >> everybody is drinking all the time. well, maybe about five gallons per capita of alcohol per every person, man, woman and child. it is hard to know because some of it -- so much is brewed at home, disstild at home and not yet a big business. all that other stuff happens in

ed's century. i am sorry, i didn't mean -- >> it is all right. >> there is growing concern as the revolution approaches of nobody knows this, of course, be like historians, they don't know it but there is a growing concern about drinking in certain areas. one of the things is that the taverns are crowded with lots of people and including a future patriots and they have been squeezed out of the legislature so what else are 24e they going to do? they'll have a drink about it. maybe there is too much drinking and too much rowdiness in the cities and the mob that is the patriots use in order to overthrow the old regime, well, they could be potentially dangerous force so there is concern about drinking on the frontier, drinking in newly settled areas, sailors, of course, notorious because they have to drink. it is part of their job. so we have a revolution, right? >> and since the revolution basically fixed everything that was wrong in america, that must

have ended after that alcohol consumption declined? >> absolutely, a new world began in 1776, right? wrong. >> it is all the time we have. >> i have news for you and i want to share it with our friends out here, and that is, well, my people in the 18th century, they were concerned about regulation, about moderation, about maybe there is some excessive drinking. well, it is a free country. it was a free country, and american democrats, they're going to drink. they're going to drink. you're not going to be able to impose any order on them. guess what? by 1830 this is, talk about a golden age. >> 1830. >> the drunkest moment in u.s. history. >> my century now. be quiet. >> 7.8 gallons per capita. >> in the 19th century, 1830, so in the early decades of the new nation it kind of goes crazy. >> yeah. >> you wouldn't think you could

drink more five gallons of pure alcohol a year. turns out you can. >> and also in drunken constitute pores. >> no, no. >> it helped political participation. >> it did. what you find, too, of course is this is the time when markets are rapidly expanding, finding the population is rapidly growing and you find a very complex geography of drinking across the country. you have the culture of the eastern cities and you're also finding new cultures in the frontier, down in the south the perpetual frontier of slavery and the plantations and you're finding, too, that right after this huge infusion of immigrants. >> i am a little confused. this is emerging and things get even worse. how did we ever turn the corner on alcohol to become such a sober and moderate people? >> yes. look at them coming out on a saturday night to listen to

radio live. they're very temperate people. >> to watch radio live. >> to watch radio. be clear what these people are doing here right now. >> think about that. >> this is a very serious problem you got, folks, watching radio. >> here is the situation. they didn't know about radio back then. what they did notice is that after it peaks in 1830, alcohol consumption remains remarkably stable across the 19th century. the civil war is a huge ka tas proef and what you find is that if you are worried about trying to maintain order in the troops, trying to control that alcohol, but when either confederate or union troops come near a household that they can appropriate the alcohol they do. afterwards it turns out the consumption of alcohol per capita, it is far better than in your century. >> like half, right? >> it is. it stays stable which is kind of a surprising thing. why would that be? it would have to be in part that people decide to drink less,

that maybe they read the words and decided to interpret them. >> what were they drinking, ed? wasn't it harder stuff? >> yeah, yeah, they were drinking harder stuff. >> seems like this is an early triumph of capitalism, that's a big thing here, isn't it? it was the market that brought lots of whiskey for lots of drinkers. it is very american in its progress. >> yeah. >> why didn't that just go on forever? >> well, because people said, you know, we're able to make and market this much alcohol, we better find ways to control it a little bit and so that's a little later in the show. just to keep people wondering, did america spin into owe bolivia an, no, but something happened along the way. you also found the other sort of counter-veiling pressures came in that people decided maybe we better show up on work on monday and a lot more they did in the 18th century and internalize

this. >> we drank on the job in my century. that's the job description, isn't it? >> by the time we handed the baton over the 20th century, we don't do that anymore. >> you have to have sober workers to produce good drink, that what you're saying? >> if you want to produce the alcohol you have to have somebody show up at work. >> one of the contradictions of capitalism. >> you think the story is over because we're drinking less and we're drinking everywhere, but we're drinking less and a lot of the story in the 20th century is how this drinking becomes disstild if you will, and becomes concentrated and ironically becomes embodied in beer, not in whiskey. >> and beer is good for you relatively speaking. >> it starts out at the beginning of the 20th century as being promoted as helpful. >> especially lager. >> right. >> it is like water and it still

is. >> what is not so helpful in the view of many americans is the concentration, the disstilgs of this drinking in places called saloons. saloons were places that were associated with prostitution, with political corruption, and let me put in a good word for saloons. saloons were key sites for labor organizing. they were basically offices for lots of union leaders who wanted to organize workers and saloons were a safe haven, a way from the view of the boss. when you got your act together in the 19th century and made sure people didn't show up drunk at work, and probably good thing, they're working with heavy machinery, well, they just started drinking in these saloons. they took their alcohol -- >> that's where they went. >> yeah, yeah, i told you you should read about the 20th

century. what worried people as much or almost as much as the problems related to alcoholism, the kind of domestic abuse that it led to, what it did to families, was the fear that this working class was forming, it was forming in uncontrolled places. >> in taverns you had a revolution. >> that was against the bad guys, you see. >> good revolution. >> this would have been against the captain lists, and they were not happy about that. really they didn't need to worry so much. a couple of things happened. first, prohibition came along and absolutely shut down the saloons. we don't believe in doing things halfway in the 20th century. >> no, no. >> after that you had the great depression. so by the time that breweries got going again, a lot of the local breweries, regional breweries, had really been wiped out, and a lot of those had been

supporting those saloons. in fact, 70% of the saloons at the turn of the century had tie-ins as they call it with the big brewers. those connections are severed. what you get is the emergence of these national beer companies that are distributing widely, using things like steel cans in order to distribute the beer, no longer doing it in -- they're bypassing the saloons, and they are pitching their beer to more of a national audience and to be honest, it is kind of generic. they talk about the flavors of the beer, all of the ads have pictures of women or when we get tv, we have mable that brings us black label and she winks at the end of the commercial. >> they're all too young. >> they can probably find it on youtube. >> i bet you can. it is a very generic thing.

in 1971 something truly remarkable happens. advertisers, actually phillip morris, who has bought this beer company to be specific, discover that beer drinkers feel left out, and they start to focus their attention on that beer drinker, on you, the beer drinker, so i want you guys to listen to this jingle. ♪ ♪ ♪ we got the beer, beer after beer ♪ ♪ ♪ when it is time to relax, beer after beer ♪ ♪ if you got the time, we got

the beer, miller beer ♪ >> so if you have the time, and they're appealing to all kinds of americans who are really at the peak post world war ii earning years. they're getting more fringe benefits. they have more leisure time and miller would like them to have endless leisure time because they have the beer and they can drink beer after beer, and it is not just miller. the bud slogan right after this -- >> if this bud's for you, i don't want it. >> whatever you do, this bud's for you. >> what happens to the working guy and his beer? >> we know the only real working guy here is ed ayers. >> yes. >> only because he is a university president. >> that's right. >> average old university president. >> turns out that not everybody buys this idea of everybody has all the time and they have all the beer, and in 1973 one of the

biggest hits in the country addressed this issue head on in sort of a fearless way and johnny russells timeless classic red necks, white socks and blue ribbon beer that we need to hear a little bit of right now. >> seemed to be two cities there in white socks and blue ribbon beer. >> you will have to sing it, ed. >> you know, that is a really a horrifying prospect to think about. what it was suggesting is that this whole message that we're just one big class and it is for you, whatever you do, kind of a sham, and in fact that there is a place to get the bars that you can hear the record on the needle there. i don't know if we're going to hear it there. >> hold on. >> ♪ >>. ♪ a drunk at the bar is getting

noisier than me ♪ ♪ ♪ some guy on the phone says i will be home soon, dear ♪ ♪ red necks, white socks and blue ribbon beer ♪ ♪ we don't fit in with that white collar crowd ♪ ♪ we're a little too rowdy and a little too loud ♪ ♪ there is no place that i would rather be than right here with my red neck, white socks and blue ribbon beer ♪ ♪ >> red, white and blue. >> i got the white collar. that's what i got. >> yeah. >> i have the blue shirt. >> i happen to be wearing one. >> what this suggests is we have come full circle the way that local is tied into the social world, so highly differentiated before and 19th century we'll talk about later tries to get this under control and begins to differentiate again and

marketers try to act as if there is one big market and country music comes out and suggests don't fool us, alcohol is still deeply coated in every american way. you know, all of this talk about beer is kind of has me thirsty. pbr would be good. >> yeah. >> i think that we're so fortunate tonight to have a special guest. brian, you can tell us about it. >> she actually unlike us is an expert on beer. we have with us tonight lucy saunders. welcome, lucy. >> yay, lucy. >> a short introduction. i know in milwaukee lucy needs to introduction. lucy is an award-winning food writer here in milwaukee whose books include cooking with beer, grilling with beer, are you picking up on a theme?

best of american beer and food and i am dying to ask if lucy is currently working on a book called microwaving with beer. please help me welcome lucy, a round of applause, historian. >> thank you so much. actually, peter, this beer is for you. this is a beer -- >> we didn't know that you had any that we could drink. >> all right, peter. >> all right. >> crack that baby open. >> all right. time to salute the flag. red, white and blue. >> for the radio audience out there, peter, what have you done. >> this is 24 fluid ounces. it means for any group of three history guys, have you eight ounces each, and it is an enormous pabst blue ribbon. >> a tall boy. >> a tall boy?

wow. we're drinking my century now, is that right? >> it predates your century, the 18th century. >> there is no earlier century. >> this would be an example of a 16th century beer style, a doculbachs, and they were the liquid bread brewed for nutrition during the fasting season of lent on monasteries and there is lots of speculation about the origins of lager yeast, lager yeast differing from ale yeast by being bottom fermenting, and really what you see is a beautiful dark -- >> you can't even see through it. >> it is mahogany. >> describe this to the radio audience. >> it is a deep mahogany. it looks so tasty. i wonder what it tastes like. >> please do. cheers. welcome to the beer portion. >> radio audience, we're now drinking the beer many in small,

tateful -- >> i am about to finish the beer. >> some kind of competition. >> and some of us are helping out the radio show by describing what we're doing and not thinking about it myself. >> this is remarkably good. >> it is remarkably good. it is actually -- >> this doesn't come from the 17th century. >> no. this is a beer style that was resuccess stated by stucker brewery based here in milwaukee county, in glendale. >> it is delicious. >> and the daculbach is a popular german beer style and would be considered a seasonal beer. >> they would have brought this with them had they came to wisconsin? >> they would have brought this with them. >> we made this into an american beer and took the best of the old world and gave it new life. >> it is giving us new life. >> the german brewers in milwaukee in the 19th century, there were many, many breweries here, and i would say that the

bachs and brown ales, everything was dark but starting in the middle of the 19th century two things happened. refridgeration was widely adopted, and clear glass could be mass manufactured, and so suddenly the color of beer became much more important. a bavarian brewer -- >> i can see that in the twist off. >> they didn't have twist off. i have here example from another milwaukee brewer, the lake front brewery and it is a pills inner. it is a lovely, soft, straw gold. >> and this would have been -- >> are we going to share glasses? >> no. >> we don't usually drink on the show. >> right, right. question of protocol here. >> there you go. >> as a matter of fact, i am knowing less history by the second. take that into account.

>> we'll cover it in the q&a. >> the pill son style, the lager, really was an invention that came about in the 19th century with the advent of the umplt varum, the bottom fermenting lager yeast, and they use a hopz that are grown in that borderline area between germany and the czech republic, the lovely saws hops. very floral. >> i am confused. did americans surely play some pioneering role in developing beer, did we not. >> that actually happened in the 70s. >> 1970s? >> i will drink to that. >> all right. >> before prohibition you could find many different beer styles. there were mucher, special dark styles, many different styles of beer, and after prohibition

there were so few brewery that is opened, we went from having more than 2,000 to just a bit over 700 breweries after prohibition. >> right. >> so tastes evolved with the marketing of beer as something lighter, more enjoyable, and increasingly marketed to women. >> we were talking about that. it's actually true. she knows this stuff. >> for example, here in milwaukee, alice chalmers during the war years, the work force went from being 3% to women to more than 25% women. there was a big shift and the women coming off of their shifts wanted to go to the tavern and have a beer too. >> can you imagine calling a beer the champagne of bottled beers. that seems so transgresssively perverse. >> well, i still think that there's some beers that rival champagne in terms of complexity

of flavor. >> we'll drink to that. >> yes. the pabst blue ribbon family. >> is this watching us drink. >> so to be clear t 19th century would have seen a profusion of styles, the golden age of beer. >> 19th century is the golden age? >> for some. that would have continued the growth in the early 20th century so it's a discontinuous history and there is not a general american taste for or tendency toward a lighter beer until it's kind of -- >> i think it was part of the marketing push. this great mass marketing in the 50s and 60s and the whole idea that you could have a single beer and consistency was a big issue. to have the same taste no matter where you lived. there was this great expansion in population. >> and also, so much of this was for taking to your house than drinking in a tavern or in a pub. >> that, too.

really we have, i think, the golden age of american brewing is now. >> the golden age? yes! >> ladies and gentlemen. the 21st century. >> as of last month the united states now has more than 2,000 breweries in operation. >> yeah. it's america. we're back to where we were a century ago. >> sort of a rebirth. now is it kind of the self conscious or is this natural, or is this force bid yupie. as natural as this beer. >> also i think it's the interest in foods that are local, handmade. how many of you home brew? there must be some. yes. yes. >> all of the people in the front row. >> exactly. >> so what does it taste like now? >> your ppr i think is a little

bland. but that sprekle is a good example. >> let's drink to 2012. >> history moves in more than one direction would be the implication i draw from this. >> oh, man. >> i'd be just the smallest amount of that. >> just so you know -- >> maybe i'll just -- >> yes. >> how much of this show do we have sfleft. >> i don't know. >> who cares. >> okay. thanks so much for having me on. >> all right. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. >> that is lucy saunders, and you can find some of her recipes and all kinds of information at beercook.com. thank you so much, lucy. that was terrific.

♪ the old woman beg immediate not to go ♪ ♪ many times before ♪ she said love and happiness can't live behind those honky-tonk doors ♪ ♪ you're to blame, boy ♪ not me ♪ too late you finally see what's made milwaukee famous done made a loser out of you and me ♪ >> well, if you are just tuning in we're tuning out. oh, no. this is back story and we're coming to you today from the annual meeting of the organization of american and the national council on public history in milwaukee. our theme for the hour, alcohol

in america. >> guys, we're having a lot of fun with this, lots of yucks. but to be honest, through american history, alcohol has not been a laughing matter. it was prohibition of course, but i think we know that americans were concerned about alcohol long before prohibition. am i wrong? >> yeah. i was telling you about the people crowding the taverns, up to no good especially after independence. and think about it my fellow democrats, sorry, didn't mean big d, i mean little d democrats. here we are in the land of the free and we have to govern ourselves and that requires self mastery, right, so you should not do what we're doing on stage today. any young people in the audience, this is purely for the interests of academic -- right. stay away. >> there's real concern emerging with benjamin rush's the heavy

hitter in terms of anti-alcohol in the campaign against intemperance. we're going to try another neat visual trick on radio but you're here to model it for us, we're going to take a look and many of you have this on your seats or might be sitting on it now. stand up and get it out. and 1784, benjamin rush, of philadelphia, gives us the moral and physical thermometer. and i just want to share some of the insights that rush gives us here. and this would be a bit of a warning. we're moving into the darker portion of our program. and if you are a water drinker, then i want to tell you things are looking good for you because i can predict health and wealth, long life and happiness. what more could you want. >> where was that? >> it's up there number 70 at the very top.

benjamin rush is not an absolutist. he's not like those people that make ed's century and brian's even more a grim affair. he's not a prohibitionist. he says you can drink small beer. that's only 1%. you can follow me down, which is actually up, we should turn it upside down because, well, zoun right. you're going down. >> wait, i'm getting dizzy, peter. >> oh, man. maybe that's -- >> you go to cider, that could be 5%, 7%. wine, you know wine, that would be 10, 12. porter, strong beer, things are still okay and this is the important take away for us moderate drinkers as we were up until the third one here. and it is, if you incorporate this into a healthy and moderate lifestyle, this is my words of wisdom for the day, you will be rewarded with cheerfulness, strength, and nourishment. it's food.

particularly taken at meals in moderate quantities, but this is the grim part that i need to share with you. and i told you this was going to get dark. things get worse when you drink punch. as you see my friends, this is the big pivot point. if it's weak punch you're still in the temperate zone. this is scientific. it's calibrated. it could be strong, whoa. you're on the slippery slope because next thing you know, you're going to be drinking tody, growing, bitters, morning drams, a bad habit. john adams used to drink cider every morning. pepper and rum. >> that's the worst. >> that is at the very bottom of your thermometer. now, i haven't told you the price you're going to pay for this. the vices from idolness to hay dread of just government. that's an important one. this is the critical period.

and next thing you know you'll be a murderer. now, in case you weren't aware of the implications of these various vices, many diseases from gout to apaplexy accompany these. then death to black eyes. i think you need help on that one usually. rags, hunger, the jail, the whipping post, castle island, and folk, if you are there, doing pepper and rum, you are either going to commit suicide or you are simply going to die or we'll hang you. >> who had pepper with rum at the reception here? anybody? >> peter, that's harrowing. and fortunately we had my sense tear come along and tidy up after you. because we launched then in