DRAFT Magazine

The dark era of the speakeasy came to an end when, at 12:01 a.m. on April 7, 1933, Anheuser-Busch’s August A. Busch, Jr. announced to the nation on KMOX CBS Radio, Out of a maze of confusion and anxiety has come a beacon light to guide the way to better times.

The 18th Amendment, which started Prohibition in 1920, decimated the brewing industry. According to the “Brewers Almanac, the 1,568 brewers that thrived before 1920 had dwindled to a mere 714 by the time Busch made his historic radio broadcast. Anheuser-Busch, like many of its competitors, survived by making a near beer called New Brew Budweiser, with an alcohol content that met the government standard of .5% or less ABV. President Franklin D. Roosevelt promised in his campaign to bring an end to Prohibition, and just 33 days into his term, the Cullen-Harrison Act did just that.

In the first moments of April 7, jovial hoards gathered in the biggest cities across the United States to await the arrival of the first cases of legal beer to be delivered in nearly 14 years. The now-iconic Budweiser Clydesdales rolled through the streets of the Big Apple with 300 crates of 3.2% ABV beer and a case of Budweiser to the base of the Empire State Building, where they honored former New York Governor Alfred E. Smith, who crusaded to repeal Prohibition, with the first case of post-Prohibition beer. The ticker in New York’s Times Square broadcast the triumphant message: Happy days are here again.

For more information on Anheuser-Busch’s role in the post-Prohibition brewing industry, visit www.anheuser-busch.com.