The History of the Kegerator: Parts 5 and 6

Part Five: Prohibition and Cold Beer

The prohibition era stamped out what few remaining craft breweries survived the era of the Beer Barons. For 13 years, from 1920-1933, beer became increasingly hard to find and many of the German immigrants, to whom beer was such an important cultural landmark, were taken aback. There was a short period of time, when the National prohibition legislation was looming, when brewers even turned against distillers in an effort to make beer seem more wholesome than the “hard stuff.” This effort had little effect upon the Prohibitionists’ momentum.

Fortunately, the technology of cold beer production did not really lose anything during this period, as many breweries switched off into soda production and switched back to beer making after the end of prohibition. Still, only about 160 breweries were able to survive prohibition and re-open their doors. They used a variety of tactics during the waiting-out period that lasted those thirteen years.

This was a terrible era for beer. It was not as efficient to make beer as it was spirits, so the law-breakers looked towards the more profitable and concentrated product: moonshine. Beer was still made, but it became more of a private affair, and the farmer, as always, still had the old home brew.

One brewery used many of the popular tactics all at one facility: the Diehl Brewery of Defiance, Ohio, began the conversion of their family brewery to a milk-condensing plant in order to survive the prohibition era. Although they did plan far enough ahead, they weren’t quite finished with the plant’s conversion when the prohibition laws hit them. They started making their plans around 1910, when it became obvious that prohibitionist groups would not relent in their zealous endeavor to rid the United States of alcoholic beverages. Groups such as the Anti-Saloon League and the Women's Christian Temperance Union were strong in the state of Ohio and elsewhere.

Ohio became completely dry May 1919. The statewide referendum was passed in 1918, so the Diehl brothers had a little time to put their plans into action. They started by making “near beer”, a product with somewhat the taste of beer, but almost no alcohol. Their adaptability had drawn interest from investors, with which they got their milk condensing operation running by 1922. At this point, they knew it was going to be a long wait.

The Diehl brothers also kept their bottling machines in top shape by producing a variety of soft drinks, and after thirteen years of prohibition they opened up again as a brewery. Within two weeks of the repeal of the National Prohibition Amendment the Diehl Brewery’s beer was back on the market. But the market had changed… big time. It seems likely that the repeal of prohibition was stimulated by the great depression.

Those breweries that managed to survive prohibition were opening their doors onto the great depression, but at least people still wanted to drink. Saloons were no longer the main outlet for beer – people wanted to take beer home with them. New cooled transportation units could take the beer to a much farther market… and women were now drinking beer. By the end of prohibition, General Electric was making ice machines for the home, and by 1937 over two million Americans had refrigerators in their homes.

It is likely, at this point, that the first at-home beer dispensing units were being made. It wasn’t until after World War II that these units became common, similar to the kegerator as we know it now.

Part Six: Early Beer Draft Systems

We will take a step back now, and examine the evolution of the draft beer system. There are reports of beer draft systems being invented as early as 1691. According to the London Gazette of 1961, of a certain John Lofting:

“The said patentee has also projected a very useful engine for starting of beer, and other liquors which will draw from 20 to 30 barrels an hour, which are completely fixed with brass joints and screws at reasonable rates.” But it was Joseph Bramah that patented the beer engine in 1785. This was an air pump system which brought the beer forth from a keg. I have seen similar systems used by home brewers today – but usually a bicycle tire pump is used with a special fitting for a Cornelius, or soda keg. I doubt that many of these home brewers have heard of Bramah’s patent, however, his beer engine served beer around the globe until the last decades of the 19th century. It was at this time that pressurized ales began to make their appearance, replacing cask ales and Bramah’s beer engine dramatically. By 1900, 75% of ales in the United States were being served with pressurized gases.

Until the advent of stainless steel and aluminum kegs, all beer was packaged in wooden kegs. Both these wooden kegs and their metallic descendants were, and still are, often coated on the inside with a natural wax or resin to prevent contamination of the barrel and the beer. It is curious to note that many beer traditionalists still to this day prefer a cask ale, one that is poured with gravity straight from the cask, to an artificially carbonated ale.

Draught beer was served pressurized by the early 1900’s, and gas separation and compression technology was catching up to the beer world. Force carbonation came about first in England in 1936. Watney’s Red Barrel was one of the first beers that came artificially carbonated and pasteurized. This kind of beer was not popular in England then, but became the standard for the rest of Europe, known as beer “en pression”. Artificially carbonated and pasteurized beer became increasingly more common through the 1970’s, and has been the standard ever since.

Natural beer aficionados in England established the Campaign for Real Ale (1971) to advocate un-pressurized beer, and came up with the term “real ale” to differentiate beer served from the cask from beer served under artificial pressurization. Eventually, the term “real ale” was expanded to include bottle-conditioned ales, and now the term “cask ale” is used to refer to un-pressurized ales.

With the move to colder beer naturally came the progression of beer that was more and more carbonated. Because CO2 dissolves more easily into liquids at colder temperatures, the movement towards colder beer meant a move towards more carbonated beer.

The beer keg, as we know it now, came into being in the early 1960s. The design allows efficient cleaning and filling in the brewery, with a downspout located in the middle and a valve that both allows beer in and gas out and vice-versa.

A standard US keg holds: