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Our prissy, American ancestors taught us to love bland beer, says Washington Post

June 15, 2015Keith Gribbins

guy beer books pointing funny
Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.

It’s Monday morning, and we’re here to drop a big WTF bomb on American history. Most Americans still enjoy drinking light-tasting lagers from the likes of Miller, Coors and Budweiser (no revelation there), but did you know that it was your excessively respectful American ancestors that are at fault?

Well, the Washington Post ran an interesting piece on Friday — Why Americans have such bad taste in beer — that discusses America’s love for “tasteless beers” with economist Ranjit Dighe.

“It goes back to the early 1900s, or even late 1800s,” said Dighe, who teaches at the State University of New York at Oswego. “Americans have preferred to drink bland beer for more than a hundred years.”

A big cog in the bland beer machine has been various temperance movements in early U.S. history; temperance movements typically criticize excessive alcohol consumption, promote complete abstinence or use its political influence to press the government to enact alcohol laws to regulate the availability of alcohol or even its complete prohibition (so says Wikipedia). Temperance movements began as early as the American Revolution in states like Connecticut, Virginia and New York, and they even continue today.

“Protestant, baptist, methodist values — they all were too strong,” said Dighe. “So the whole temperance movement had a profound effect on the type of beer Americans drank. No one touched the more alcoholic stuff.”

The result was that rather than developing a taste for all beers, Americans instead opted only for those that looked like they had the least amount of alcohol. Lighter ones, in other words. So when the country went from drinking almost no beer in the early 1800s to drinking quite a bit of it in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it was almost exclusively bland. Some 85 to 90 percent of beer consumed in the United States around that time were pilsners and lagers.

The article goes into some other cool arguments and insights that include seminal, good-beer crushing events like Prohibition and World War II (where soldiers were fed light stuff to keep them sober). It’s a quality article written by Roberto A. Ferdman, and we suggest you read the rest of it with a suitability rich, high ABV craft beer.

 

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  1. mrbrewreview says

    June 18, 2015 at 9:55 pm

    Our prissy, American ancestors taught us to love bland beer http://t.co/YJd7vrPKtv via @craftbrewingbiz

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  2. carlu_fra says

    June 17, 2015 at 8:07 pm

    RT @brewmanity: Our prissy, American ancestors taught us to love bland beer, says @washingtonpost http://t.co/EeV2qvlIWE #craftbeer

    Log in to Reply
  3. brewmanity says

    June 17, 2015 at 7:59 pm

    Our prissy, American ancestors taught us to love bland beer, says @washingtonpost http://t.co/EeV2qvlIWE #craftbeer

    Log in to Reply
  4. vinchette says

    June 16, 2015 at 12:21 pm

    RT @CraftBrewingBiz: Americans love light beer because of our excessively respectful American ancestors! Damn them! http://t.co/0n5CESklhh …

    Log in to Reply
  5. Hudsomania says

    June 16, 2015 at 11:22 am

    RT @CaptainCheers: Our prissy, American ancestors taught us to love bland beer http://t.co/OWfV2UXx1H

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  6. CaptainCheers says

    June 16, 2015 at 11:17 am

    Our prissy, American ancestors taught us to love bland beer http://t.co/OWfV2UXx1H

    Log in to Reply
  7. TheBeerSyrupCo says

    June 16, 2015 at 9:42 am

    RT @CraftBrewingBiz: Americans love light beer because of our excessively respectful American ancestors! Damn them! http://t.co/0n5CESklhh …

    Log in to Reply
  8. Krones AG says

    June 16, 2015 at 3:52 am

    Krones AG liked this on Facebook.

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  9. NickHike says

    June 15, 2015 at 8:16 pm

    RT @KCHopTalk: Our prissy, American ancestors taught us to love bland beer, says Washington Post http://t.co/7iHk1BKdFt

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  10. KCHopTalk says

    June 15, 2015 at 7:18 pm

    Our prissy, American ancestors taught us to love bland beer, says Washington Post http://t.co/7iHk1BKdFt

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  11. Kevin Watkins says

    June 15, 2015 at 3:21 pm

    Kevin Watkins liked this on Facebook.

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  12. William Paap says

    June 15, 2015 at 11:22 am

    William Paap liked this on Facebook.

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  13. crsimp01 says

    June 15, 2015 at 11:19 am

    Our prissy, American ancestors taught us to love bland beer http://t.co/8dj2ymuqeX via @craftbrewingbiz

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  14. NewEnglandBeers says

    June 15, 2015 at 10:31 am

    RT @CraftBrewingBiz: Our prissy, American ancestors taught us to love bland beer, says @washingtonpost @robferdman http://t.co/GeEFuCZsKV

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