Gateway

Issue date: 4/11/08 Section: News

Nebraska Brewing Company bartender Ryan Kiger pours a 10 cent beer in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the repeal of alcohol prohibition in the United States. (Michelle Bishop) [Click to enlarge]

(Michelle Bishop) [Click to enlarge]

A little over 75 years ago, President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Cullen-Harrison Act, the first step towards the end of the Prohibition Era. After approving the amendment, he reportedly expressed a sentiment that many of today's college students can still relate to: "I think this would be a good time for a beer."

Congress voted to pass the 18th Amendment in 1919, prohibiting the manufacture, sale, transport, import or export of alcoholic beverages. Thirteen months later, it passed in Nebraska in January 1919 and became law one year later, making the state the 36th to ratify.

For the next 13 years, the effects of prohibition would be numerous, including the rise of mobster crime bosses to spiraling illegal alcohol prices that most workers were unable to afford.

However, with the ratification of the 21st Amendment in 1933, the 18th Amendment was repealed, allowing the sale and consumption of alcohol.

Seventy-five years later, the Nebraska Brewing Company, located in Papillion, decided to turn the clock back in memory of a time when beer was illegal.

Co-owners Paul and Kim Kavulak decided to do something special for the anniversary of the legalization of what has morphed from a home-brewing hobby to a brew-pub located in the Shadow Lake Towne Center. A sampling of their brewed-right-there beers were only 10 cents. The price, they said, was of a beer back in the 1920s and 1930s.

"We saw a great opportunity to do a couple things - to help introduce people who haven't had craft come in and try us out and to celebrate the 75th anniversary," Kim said.

Paul agreed, saying, "If they hadn't passed it we wouldn't exist."

During those times, the decision to outlaw alcohol served against the purpose of rescuing the economy since many craftsman and brewers were put out of business, Kim said.

"People did in large part what they knew how to do to survive," she said. "That was an era when craftsmanship was what it was. You had a craft, and that's what you did. There wasn't a lot else to fall back on. A lot of people did what they knew to survive."

Since then, beer has thrived, going through a boom in macro breweries, and in 1965, a revival of small-brewery operations, primarily thanks to the Old Steam Beer Brewing Company in San Francisco.

"Looking back on what it must have been like, knowing there were so many fellow brewers that were falling on hard times and going out of business. For the brewing community to imagine that happening again, families would be destroyed," Paul said. "It would destroy entire groups of people in the industry."

Paul said he had once tried to recreate one of his grandmother's Prohibition Era bathtub beers but ended up with generally undrinkable results.

"It was a style of beer called Pibo, and I actually had the recipe when I was home brewing," Paul said. "It contained a lot of actual sugar, which was a shortcut to creating the alcohol. I don't know if it was my inexperience at the time or if that was how the beer normally turned out. I wouldn't call it foul, but it wasn't necessarily a beer I would like to consume."

Beer, being one of the staples of the "Animal House"-style college student, has since become iconic America.

When asked whether they would have considered running a speak easy in the 1920s and 1930s, Paul said that with his father being a retired police officer, his answer would be "no." However, Kim equated the risk of running a speak-easy with the risk of running any small business today.

"It might have been fun, because there's always fun in risk, a little bit," Kim said. "That's what this is for us; this is fun for us. … This is what we know and love. Brewing beer is what spawned this whole adventure. It's a lot of risk, but it's what we love."

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