Homebrewing - History

History

Alcohol has been brewed domestically throughout its 7,000-year history beginning in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq), Egypt and China. Knowledge of brewing beer and wine was passed on from the Egyptians to the Greeks and then to the Romans.

Mass production of brewed beverages began in the 18th century with the Industrial Revolution. Innovations, like thermometers and hydrometers, allowed increases in efficiency. French microbiologist Louis Pasteur explained the role of yeast in beer fermentation in 1857, allowing brewers to develop strains of yeast with desirable properties (conversion efficiency, ability to handle higher alcohol content).

While the sale or consumption of commercial alcohol was never prohibited in the UK, throughout the first half of the 20th century, homebrewing was circumscribed by taxation and prohibition. One of the earliest, modern attempts to regulate private production that affected this era was the Inland Revenue Act of 1880 in the United Kingdom; this required a 5-shilling homebrewing license.

In the UK, on April 1963, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Reggie Maudling removed the need for the 1880 brewing license. Australia followed suit in 1972, when Gough Whitlam repealed Australian law prohibiting the brewing of all but the weakest beers and wines as one of his first acts as Prime Minister.

In 1920, the United States outlawed the manufacture and consumption of alcoholic beverages "for beverage purposes." As a result of Prohibition, breweries, vineyards, and distilleries across the United States were closed down or placed into service making malt for non-alcoholic purposes. During prohibition, home wine-making was treated more leniently as the result of a 1920 IRS ruling that loosened standards for allowable alcohol content for wine and cider but not for beer. Homebrewing of beer having an alcohol content higher than 0.5% remained illegal until 1978 when Congress passed a bill repealing Federal restrictions and excise taxes on the homebrewing of small amounts of beer and wine. Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, signed the bill, H.R. 1337, into law in October 1978; however, the bill left individual states free to pass their own laws limiting production.

In the United Kingdom, many pioneers were home winemakers owing to the greater availability of information and ingredients. These included CJJ Berry, who co-founded the first wine brewing circle in Hampshire and three other English counties. Berry also produced the Amateur Winemaker magazine and published First Steps in Winemaking, and Home Brewed Beers and Stouts. Another early proponent of homebrewing was Dave Line, who after also writing for Amateur Winemaker wrote The Big Book of Brewing in 1974.

The United States, having an established home winemaking culture, moved rapidly into the brewing of beer. Within months of legalization, Charlie Papazian founded the Association of Brewers (now Brewers Association and American Homebrewers Association). In 1984, Papazian published The Complete Joy of Home Brewing. This and Line's work remain in print to this day alongside later publications such as Graham Wheeler's Home Brewing: The CAMRA Guide.