We’ll just call it attempted murder.

Here’s another history somebody should do (looks like too much work to me): The revival of the German beer tavern, post Prohibition and post WWII.

Meantime, I’ll tone down “killing” German-based beer culture to “sapping” German-based beer culture. It’s not what it used to be, though it’s definitely still there. I overspoke, and I apologize.

Probably harder still on wine – but discussing beer/wine parallels before and after Prohibition would get lengthy.

I would argue, happily, that German-based beer culture refused to die. One thing we certainly miss about the Midwest is bier stubes. Not much diversity. Great culture.

Quality? A very flexible word, much like “premium.” I would venture to say that the overall quality of beer in the U.S. in the 30 years prior to Prohibition was higher than that of wine, but what does that get us?

I would say that beer culture depends more on acceptance in society. In which case you’ve certainly got a live issue in the causes of Prohibition: American brewers shot themselves in the foot, along with saloon-owners and drinkers. They were asking for it, and got it. But World War I and the wave of hysterical anti-German propaganda generated by the British had a lot to do with killing the strong German-based beer culture in places like Chicago, Pennsylvania, Milwaukee, and Texas.

You cannot blame everything on Prohibition, nor on the large brewers, to be sure. But something that puts a majority of a country’s brewers out of business can’t be swept under the revisionist rug, either.

- What was a pale ale, as you know, would not be the same then as now. “Stock” as a flavour concept and style was an accepted aspect of beer prior to a certain point, though this may be more of a Canadian thing as we were pale ale drinkers to a far greater degree before WWII compared to you Americans. Two Ontario craft brewers and at least two macros are making stock ales now, though Molson’s stock is a far cry from what it was once. Moosehead in the Maritimes still makes Ten Penny stock ale and others in their line carry a musty quality that evokes past tastes.

- quality also goes to storage life. Most ales and lagers would have been sold much more within the natural “best by” date. Freshness or the perception that somehting was what it was supposed to be would have been a variable the consumer would recognize. Also, they would recognize it more within a range than we would with out standardized, homogenized mass market goods.

- diversity would hav been more in amongst makers than today’s brands amongst fewer brewers. I would have been interesting to know what the range of Canadian Pre-WWII porters, for example, tasted like. So you are not going to find a coffee porter or a imperial India Pale Ale – just different brewers porter and ipa.

Admittedly I swerved off course a bit, thinking that our beer culture ultimately influences what beer choices we end up with.

I may have to get this book: “Beer, Its History and Its Economic Value as a National Beverage” (from beerbooks.com) to see if it answers some of the questions you bring up.

I too am pretty confident that were times of great diversity than the early 20th century. Quality would be another issue – not just in the US but everywhere.

Further, I have yet to find a good text on the role and economics of locally made beer of the sort you can find about English beer or, say, Ungers work in the Low Countries. It may be due in large part to the lack of public records on the point like tax records showing the amount of beer made and the ingredients that went into it. It may very well be that the colonial period was awash with excellent locally consumed ales as one would presume there were great locally produced breads and cheeses – just no body thought much about writing about these things back then so we lack the record.

So while it is true that the blandificatin of US light ales and lagers started before Prohibition, I am not convinced that this means this present point in time is the only point in time people generally consumed wonderful beer in the continental USA…keeping in mind craft beer is still only around 10% of the market.