By Abe Geyer
On December 5, 1933. seventy-nine years ago, the 18th amendment (prohibition) was repealed and beer with 3.2% alcohol by volume was allowed to be sold again.
[This past week, there was a great 3 part Ken Burns documentary on PBS on Prohibition. My 99 year old father, Abe Geyer was 20 at the time and was working at the Edelbrew Brewery in Brooklyn at the time of the repeal. Here is his account of that day and the days leading up to it.]
After thirteen years of being deprived of the good stuff, real beer was actually coming back.
Excitement ran high as mouths watered at the prospect of guzzling “the real McCoy.” Newspapers and radio hyped the event like you wouldn’t believe –- even more than they do the Super bowl today.
I was a young man of 20. I worked in the shipping room of Edelbrew, a small brewery in Brooklyn. Breweries were permitted to brew the “real” suds three days before they were actually allowed to sell it. Taking advantage of this, our brewery decided to bottle around the clock. The plan was to store the cases wherever we could find a spot — the basement, roof, garage, yard, wherever.
Outside, trucks, horses and wagons, pushcarts — any means of transportation — were lining up to buy, and then to resell to homes, groceries, restaurants, clubs, and even candy stores.
We started working Thursday 6 a.m., day and night; Friday day and night, and Saturday ’til noon — 54 hours. My mother came down and brought me a change of socks.
The activity was, to say the least, hectic. Only cash was accepted which necessitated the hiring of 20 special policemen. We loaded truck after truck, fast and furiously. Some trucks loaded, drove around the corner, sold the beer on the sidewalk, then rushed back and got on line again.
By noon Saturday, we were cleaned out. Not a single bottle remained and no more could be bottled until that Monday.
We were exhausted but happiness reigned supreme. I worked long and hard and I too was happy. That week I received a $5.00 bonus in my pay envelope.
Real beer was back!!!
Abe Geyer is the father of Gary Geyer the Chief Editor at Let Life In.
nice article