History Associates Talk | Lisa Jacobson “The Potent Politics of Weak Brews: How 3.2% Beer Helped End Prohibition” | Apr 6, 5:30 PM | Draughtsmen Aleworks

 

To commemorate the 90th anniversary of beer’s re-legalization in the United States, Lisa Jacobson will explain how a coalition of brewers, scientists, and labor leaders persuaded Congress that a beer capable of producing a mild euphoria could be legalized without violating the 18th Amendment’s ban on intoxicating beverages. Insisting that alcohol potency alone did not determine intoxication, this anti-prohibitionist coalition promoted new understandings of pleasure and risk that have long since influenced how alcohol is regulated and sold in the United States.

Lisa Jacobson is an Associate Professor of History at UC Santa Barbara. She hopes that her book Fashioning New Cultures of Drink: The Reinvention of Wine, Beer, and Whiskey after Prohibition will be available for pre-order by the 91st anniversary of beer’s re-legalization.