Shortly following the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in November 1932, the Cullen-Harrison Act was signed and enacted on April 7, 1933. The act stated that it was now legal to purchase, sell, and consume 3.2% ABV beer following Prohibition in the United States. As such, today we recognize this date as National Beer Day.
To get the full story behind this point in beer history, we sat down with beer historian, Liz Garibay (History on Tap, Chicago Brewseum) at the historic Drake Hotel in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood.
Lakeshore Beverage: Alright, can you give us a little backstory of the time when beer became legal again?
Liz Garibay: Yes, so Roosevelt runs on a wet ticket and he’s elected in November of 1932. And basically they’re trying to figure out a plan for prohibition to be repealed which is going to be the 21st Amendment. Appeal day is officially December 5, 1933, but everyone, including those who were for Prohibition, were ready for it to be over. There’s all this crime, people are drinking more than ever, and the people that are making money off of alcohol – there’s no taxation coming from them.
December 5 becomes the day when all alcohol will become available but then they start thinking how we can sort of slowly make our way back in there and get people back into the game. There’s a commission that’s created called the Wickersham Commission and they come out with a report with a bunch of findings, one of which that states 3.2% ABV beer has enough alcohol to have a good tasting beer, but not enough for you to act silly. So they said, “OK, let’s make 3.2% beer legal first.”
Lakeshore Beverage: Nice. What happens next?
Liz Garibay: So then in late March of 1933, Roosevelt signs the Cullen-Harrison act that says at 12:01am on April 7, 3.2% beer will become legal.
The breweries at the time were making a kind of base beer, near beer, which had less alcohol than 3.2%. They went into full production mode at that point which was great for them because many of them were making sodas, vinegars, anything to really make ends meet.
Of course, everyone’s mindset is April 7 is the day, but they’re going to have parties the night before and they were calling it New Beer’s Eve. So cities across the country were planning these big bashes – hotels of course, were prime places. The Drake here had one of the first liquor licenses post-Prohibition and at the time it was one of the only premiere, high-end hotels in Chicago so it’s very likely they had a big party.
There you have it — a little insider information on why we celebrate National Beer Day on April 7. We hope you’ll use our Beer Finder to locate a beverage to celebrate with this year!
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People across the country responded by gathering outside breweries, some beginning the night before. On that first day, 1.5 million barrels of beer were consumed, inspiring the future holiday. Thanks for the info.