lighter beer -- >> i think it was a marketing push. there was this great modernization of societies in the 1950s and '60s. the whole idea you can have a single beer, and consistency was a big issue, to have the same taste, no matter where you lived. as there was this great expansion in population across the country. >> and also, so much of this was for taking to your house, rather than drinking in a tavern or drinking in a pub. >> that, too. that, too. but really, we have -- i think the golden age of american brewery is now. >> ah! we live in the golden age? yes! >> let's hear it for ourselves. ladies and gentlemen, the 21st century. >> as of last month, the united states now has more than 2,000 breweries in operation. >> yea. yea, america! we are back to where we were a century ago. sort of a rebirth. so now is it kind of a

self-conscious, or is this natural, or kind of forced by kind of yuppiefication? >> it's natural as this beer. but also it's the interest in foods that are local, handmade. i mean, how many of you home brew? i'm sure there must be some home brewers. yes. >> all the people in the front row. >> that's a good sign. >> exactly. >> so what does it taste like now? >> well, your pbr i think is a little bland. but that spreker dockelbach is a little -- >> let's drink to 2012. >> yes. >> the history moves in more than one direction. it would be the implication i would draw from this. >> oh, man. >> and i need just the smallest amount of that, because -- >> and just so you know -- >> i think maybe i'll just -- like wine. >> yeah, right. >> how much of the show do we have left? >> i don't know. who cares.

>> thanks so much for having me on. >> thank you. lucy, thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> that is lucy saunders. and you can find some of her recipes and all kinds of information at beercook.com. and thank you so much, lucy. >> that was terrific. >> yes. [ applause ] ♪ the little woman begged me not to go ♪ ♪ many times before ♪ she sends love and happiness ♪ and lives behind those honky-tonk doors ♪ ♪ you're to blame, boy ♪ what's made milwaukee the

finest ♪ ♪ done made a loser out of you and me ♪ >> well, if you're just tuning in, we're tuning out. >> oh, no. >> this is "back story" and we're coming to you today from the annual meeting here in milwaukee. our theme for the hour, alcohol in america. >> you know, 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. there was prohibition, of course. but i think we know that americans were concerned about alcohol long before prohibition. am i wrong, peter? >> i was telling you about those people crowding the taverns, were up to no good, especially after independence. and think about it, my fellow

democrats -- sorry, i didn't mean big "d," i mean little "d," democrats, here in the land of the free, we have to govern ourselves, and that requires self-mastery, right? so you should not do what we're doing onstage today. >> any young people in the audience, this is purely for the interest of academics. >> that's right. >> well, there's real concern emerging with benjamin rush, the heavy hitter in terms of anti-alcohol, and the campaign against intemperance. and we're going to try another neat visual trick on radio. but you're here to model it for us. and we're going to take a look, and many of you have this on your seats, or you might even be sitting on it right now, so stand up and get it out, in 1784, dr. 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, serenity of mind and reputation, long life and happiness. what more could you want. >> where is that on the thermometer? >> it's up there, number 70, at the very top. but benjamin rush is not an absolutist. he's not like those people that make ed's century and brian's even more -- a pretty grim affair. he's not a prohibitionist. he said you can drink small beer. now, that's only 1%. you can follow me down, which is actually up. we should turn it upside down -- well, down is right. >> i'm getting dizzy here, peter. >> oh, man. >> maybe that's right here. >> you go to cider, that could

be 5%, 7%. wine, you know wine, they can be 10%, 12%. po with beer, things are still okay. and this is the takeaway for us moderate drinkers here, that 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 is going to get dark. things get worse when you drink punch. now, as you see here, my friends, this is the big pivot point. if it's weak punch, you're still in the temperate zone. this is very scientific. it's calibrated. it could be strong. >> whoa. >> you're on a slippery slope.

because the next thing you know, you're going to be drinking toddy, bitters, morning drams, a bad habit. john adams used to drink cider every morning. rum is at the very bottom of your thermometer. i haven't told you the price you're going to pay for this, the vices from idleness to hatred of just government. now, that's the important one. this is from rush. 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 apoplexy will accompany these vices. and the punishments take you from death to black eyes. i think you need help on that one usually. rags, hunger, the work house jail, the whipping post, castle

island, and folks, if you're there, doing pepper in rum, you are either going to commit suicide or you're simply going to die, or we'll hang you. >> pepper with rum at the reception here, of course. well, peter, that's harrowing. and fortunately we have my century to come along and tidy up after you, once again. because we launched then in the 19th century the thing that people have worked hardest on in the united states history, from then until today, to try to contain the evil effects of alcohol. >> how do they do that, ed? >> well, they mobilized. they mobilized in the early 19th century. the evangelical churches come along and women are key parts of all this. and women, at this tavern culture you're talking about, are often the victims of this. the women and children who are

related to the men who think it's so much fun to go do this. they begin to think there's a great social cost, a great personal cost. in the 19th century we discovered the family is the most important component of society. anything that damages the family is damaging society. and so we must -- put your beer down, i'm talking to you. we must persuade people to begin drinking water instead of alcohol. and who should they emulate? george and martha washington. washingtonians, going through and trying to get them to abstain from alcohol. >> so drinking is kind of a disease. it's a social disease. it's an individual disease. it's the demon that can do terrible things. >> there will be no doubt that along with other threats to the nation, that it's something that's simply going to have to be brought under control, if this young country's going to succeed. >> what about benjamin rush's

idea of modification? >> i'm sorry, we don't believe in that anymore. because you show in the first decades of the 19th century that you cannot be trusted to drink in moderation. and the alcohol is out of control. we have all the machinery now to deliver as much alcohol as people can drink. it's being mass produced. we're going to have to find ways to get this under control. >> so who's going to control this? >> well, we prefer that you control it yourself. >> no way. >> early on, that's the why we think slavery is going to come to an end as well. we'll begin by just talking to you a lot and trying to per suicide of you this. >> i did that with my kids, by the way. >> that didn't work out so well. by the 1950s, they'll pass a state law to make it illy. so you had prohibition in the 1850s. even as we know, peter said they didn't know the revolution is coming, they also don't know the civil war is coming. if you see the things they're animated about, it's about

controlling alcohol. the main law becomes a model for the rest of the nation. and the civil war comes in, and sort of, you know, disrupts all this, and shows there's even greater stakes than we imagined to controlling all this. they see how it shatters lives. they have men who haven't drunk much go to these army camps and they come out shattered. so women's christian temperance union decides to use the great moral power, moral suasion of women across the country. >> 1870s. >> that's right. to mobilize and to get rid of these saloons that you were talking about being -- >> exactly. >> and they also ask that the members of the wctu make a pledge. did we hear that? >> i hearby splemly promise, got helping me, to abstain from all

distilled and malt lickers including wine and cider, and to employ all proper means tor use of traffic in the same. >> you can tell she was serious. she had a sense of purpose in her voice. a remarkably clear recording from 1870. it seems to be a direct rebuttal to benjamin rush, including wine and cider. i don't care if it's distilled or fermented or malted, we don't want it. and i'm going to make a pledge and i'm going to try to stop its spread. so across the last third of the 19th century, north and south and east and west, urban and rural, the great campaign is to bring alcohol under control. as a matter of fact, remove it. there's no good reason to have that now. back in your day, the water was bad. now we have public water supplies. we have all these other reforms, there's no excuse for it. >> they don't have to hang out in saloons, they can hang out in the new public parks. or they can go to the new cemeteries. >> you hand me this mess in the

19th century, and i clean it all up and hand it to the 20th century. >> ed, you almost clean it up. and you're so on the right track. but not quite. >> oh, darn. >> we wouldn't have a 20th century if you cleaned everything up. >> i guess that's right. >> so you're on the right track. you mentioned control three or four times. and, you know, you meant well. >> i always do. >> when it comes to control, there's nothing like the federal government. >> oh! federal government? >> we're so smart in the 20th century, we figure, hey, control, this is bad for people, we need control. duh! >> it's been proven in the states. >> exactly. the laboratories of democracy. let's get the federal government involved. plus, we invented tape recording in the 20th century. so we can actually record real people being themselves. >> rather than actors.

>> rather than actresses. that's exactly right. so i want to hear from a real person recorded on tape. >> this problem is bigger than the individual states. it's a grave national problem, and it touches all our lives. >> you didn't see that coming, right? >> the problem is so clear-cut, and the proven solution at hand, we have no misgiving about this judicious use of federal power. >> don't tell him who that was. who was that? >> that was not an actual person, that was an actor. [ applause ] >> yeah. but he happened to go on to be president of the united states. ronald reagan. what is the problem that was so grave? what was bigger than the individual -- >> he didn't believe in using

the federal government. so it must have been star wars. >> yeah, star wars. >> berlin wall. >> wrong, wrong, wrong. >> no? >> i'm convinced it will help state legislators to act in the national interest to save our children's lives by raising the drinking age to 21 across the country. >> this was about drunk driving. this was about alcohol. this was about something that i think most of us in this room think is a terrible thing, driving while drunk. but it's an example of how commonplace it became for the federal government to get involved in issues of health and safety in the 20th century. so much so, that even perhaps the strongest anti-big government president of the 20th century, well, there's some competition, but ronald reagan who defended the 10th amendment,

who stood up for states' rights, said the federal government has to get involved when mothers against drunk drivers say that this is real trouble. and those comments come from ronald reagan's remarks on the signing day for the national minimum drinking age act of 1984. how did that act work? it cut off federal highway funds to states who didn't raise their minimum drinking age. ronald reagan was in essence holding the states hostage. we're going to take all this money away from you if you don't listen to us in the federal government. >> did they all buckle? >> they all buckled. even wisconsin. although i think wisconsin was the second-to-last state. it did it very grudgingly. now, of course, the story is much earlier than that. the story of the federal government getting involved. and speaking to a knowledgeable

group of schoolteachers, and historians and public historians. i don't have to tell you about prohibition. and the federal government's great social experiment. but what i did have to tell my fellow guys here, this was about the legacy of prohibition. >> brian, it seems to me from what you're saying, alcohol drives the expansion of the federal state. is that a fair statement? >> no, that's exactly right. and one can make a very good case for big government, so-called, beginning not with the new deal, but beginning with prohibition. now, for those of you who want to say sayonara, good riddance to big government, we got rid of prohibition, think again. think about the laws on search and seizure. think about the laws about wiretapping. they all come out of the 1920s, an era when the federal

government is very involved in intervening in day-to-day lives to make sure that we create a safe environment. and those laws on search and seizure, those laws on wiretapping are still very much with us today. >> it seems to me we've had a lot of continuity in these weaving back and forth across the centuries. today, drunk driving still has the women in the forefront. they feature the word mothers. >> we basically added layer on top of layer, including, peter, counting on the individual to do the right thing. think about the large corporate advertising campaigns. drink responsibly. >> yeah. >> some might say that's an oxymoron. look at peter, for instance. >> only doing it on national

television. >> it brings back to what benjamin rush was saying. >> i think the darker conclusion, we did say this was the best of all possible times, but alcohol continued to be associated with lots of pathologists. but so does anti-alcohol. so it's lose-lose. i'll drink to that. >> it's interesting, i would say, to bring us up to date on the patterns that alcohol consumption has been remarkably stable, kind of a trendless time in that regard. and it looked for a while in early '90s that wine overtook beer for one year. fortunately -- >> beer has made a comeback. now, this is the time that i know you've been waiting for, which is -- >> they've actually been waiting for the beer. >> there is that. >> the beer is gone.

>> you can come to the microphones and ask really hard questions of peter and brian about things that you would like to know about. >> we're going to defer questions of peter and brian about things that you would like to know about. >> we're going to defer them to ed. >> the best question will be awarded that 24-ounce. >> slightly flat. slightly luke warm. >> so when you can't restrain yourself any longer -- they could do this out in television land. >> they can. directly into the camera. >> this is for you. >> in tv land. waiting so long to talk with you. here's your chance to send us an e-mail with your question. >> tweet us. >> you may tweet us. the e-mail is backstory@radio -- no. >> get it right. >> back story virginia.edu. >> it is. you can e-mail this. it is. what you're thinking about is our website back story radio.org. >> i never e-mailed myself. >> you can tweet us @backstory

radio. there are so many ways. those of you in the room and i see a gentleman on the side, i need to you move up to the microphone. and we have another on the other side. >> give us your name and tell us where you're from. >> i'm joel, i'm from duluth, minnesota. i work in superior. welcome to wisconsin, where tavern culture is alive and well. [ applause ] >> we had some real interesting meeting at the old town taverns last february and march. i'm to do some planning for things in the streets. i've always heard or i once heard that when new hampshire was debating ratifying the constitution -- >> oh, no. >> i like the way this is going. >> that it was going to be a close vote and the pro constitution forces, some delegates took some antis out to lunch and they missed the vote. is there any truth to that? >> duh.

>> that will encourage people. >> you know what, we're doing capitalism and democracy, you know where they come together. it's election time and it began before the revolution with treating in virginia. that is if you're in one of those contested elections and most of them weren't, you would treat every voter. and they would be totally drunk. so yeah, it's one of the things that had to be reformed if there was going to be ultimately with the australian ballot. as long as voting was a polite public activity it was surrounded with booze. >> even new hampshire, though. virginia we can believe but new hampshire? >> vote for your guy. >> i guess that's right. >> we should say something about our mutual centuries. although it didn't rise to a constitutional level, saloons were not just places that union

leaders organized folk, i mean, saloons are where politicians walked in and treated -- >> the smoke filled rooms were? >> that was one of them. they treated everybody to a drink and of course the custom of drinking was if somebody treated you, you had to treat back, one beer led to another. and it's really where a lot of americans became familiar with the political machine. they didn't have fox news. they weren't smart enough. they didn't even have you know, internet. they got to know the political system literally through the mechanism of treating buying a drink. of course that happened on election day but it happened on a day-to-day basis. it's a way that constituents got to know their elected officials. >> we're not running for office so we're not treating. let's have another question.

>> i'm at the george washington university. i recently found bout my cousin maynard who was an enologist at university of california davis in 1939 he was hired to rebuild the department most prohibition. i wonder, more for brian, the california wine industry before prohibition, and how long it took them to really figure it out later. and really, the role of academia in all of this, as i understand it he and his research partner walker i think was his name, basically invented napa valley. they basically went around california and studied the regions and figured out what were the growing regions and the idea to approach it scientifically. >> we love these questions because we keep asking you questions. brian. >> i have no idea. what i can tell you is that americans were not huge wine drinkers.

there were two ways of the real increase in wine drinking. one had to do with one of the latest ways of european immigrants to the united states. primarily italians and jews. they preferred wine to either beer or with whiskey. they got won over to beer, many of them, by the 1910, 1920s. the second wave of increase in wine drinking happened in the 1970s and the 1980s and it was a very interesting period. you know, when we talk about red necks, white sox, and blue ribbon, they weren't just responding against people like me wearing literally white collars. they were responding to a real diversification among elites in their drinking.

fern bars, i remember, i lived in manhattan at the time. you had wine bars, fern bars. >> i thought imported beer. >> exactly so. wine drinking took off in the 1970s, and ed's referring to imported beers. he was drinking those faux imported beers with the umlauts. there was this real diversification in the drinking habits. >> wine in the 70s, that's interesting because as i understand he also wrote his second career after he retired was to try to reform wine tasting language and what he called scientific, flavors of i guess trees, bark, like oak and pine, and flowers and other

odors to describe wine than masculine and feminine and terms like that. he was part of that movement. as i understood that was in the 70s. >> i think it developed a beautiful bouquet in the 70s. >> a wonderful finish. >> thank you. this is an important fact. wine has now tied beer, late-breaking news. >> you just looked this up. >> no. it came in by itself. but it shows -- i think you're onto something. to really answer your question, academia i believe has been very involved in the whole -- >> and davis is absolutely at the center of it, right. >> but i think people would often see drinking wine as a step back toward the moderate familial based alcohol consumption. so it's interesting that what we consider to be the most healthful blend of -- is constantly coming and going. as long as it has a good oakie flavor it's fine with me.

the messages are flowing in on twitter. yeah. >> should we take a remote message. >> there is an impossible one. >> actual humans or two twitter messages. it's hard to know. >> i want to go with real people. >> i want to go with the impossible one. here. >> you don't get to choose. >> is there a connection -- is there a connection between the landing of the pilgrims at plymouth rock and the ship mates running short of beer? that's a twitter question from doug. i had to get even for being clueless on the last question. >> i'm going to say yes. that beats duh. >> brian, since you did this. >> no, no. let's go to the live audience. >> yes, sir. >> jim from eau claire.

i heard the phrase there is no free lunch. from saloons. maybe brian or ed could help with that. >> i can help. ed? >> there is no free lunch. a fascinating story. we associate that with you know, bureaucracy, today you got to pay for what you get, et cetera, et cetera. this really does come from the late 19th century. and workers when they started leaving those factories they would go to saloons, drink during lunch time, go back to work, and the temperance forces that ed was talking about, prohibition forces, pre-prohibition, said it's a shame that those workers are getting so inebriated. they are drinking on an empty stomach. the saloons at a minimum should provide them a lunch. the breweries said hey,