Today I learned there were 49 breweries in the U.S. in 1977.
Wow! I think there’s that many breweries just in my zip code.
Basically the amount of breweries in a Bavarian or Czech middle-sized town at that time…
The lingering effect of prohibition. Before the Volstead Act, every city had dozens of breweries. Most couldn’t survive. The bigger brewers muddled through and expanded once it ended. They bought out small breweries and dominated the market.
Eventually craft breweries were set up to provide more variety.
More the effect of laissez-faire capitalism, and its tireless promotion of mass-produced bland beers. Prohibition ended almost 45 years previous. The once-ubiquitous model of locally produced beers with a broad range of flavors is something the giant beer companies fought tirelessly to extinguish.
Its a combination of prohibition and the subsequent capitalism. Prohibition knocked out the small players and later the government did nothing to stop the big boys from using their muscle to monopolize the market.
Back in high school, our economics teacher introduced us to the concept of an oligopoly, and used major breweries as an example.
Yesterday we took a trip out to Battersea Power Station, one of the iconic features of the central London skyline. (If for no other reason, I guess most people would recognize it from the Pink Floyd album cover.)
It only took 40 or so years to convert the decommissioned power station into something useful [/leaden irony], but now it’s a perfectly serviceable mall, and very interesting to nose around.
So: the interesting fact. This Iconic building’s unmistakable external appearance is largely down to the work of Giles Gilbert Scott:
In 1930 the London Power Company engaged Scott as consulting architect for its new electricity generating station at Battersea. The building was designed by the company’s chief engineer, Leonard Pearce, and Scott’s role was to enhance the external appearance of the massive architecture. He opted for external brickwork, put some detailing on the sheer walls, and remodelled the four corner chimneys so that they resembled classical columns.
And here’s where it gets weird. This wasn’t even remotely the most iconic thing that Scott designed. He was also responsible for perhaps the most iconic of British sights (spoilered so that you can guess):
Cool, huh? He also had a pretty impressive track record apart from the above: Giles Gilbert Scott - Wikipedia
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I had the song Stone Soul Picnic (The 5th Dimension) stuck in my head yesterday. I love the song, but was tiring of it after it was playing in a loop for hours. Anyway I started wondering what the word “surry” meant. I always pictured in my cartoon bubble horse drawn surreys arriving at a picnic. I looked up the lyrics and it is spelled “surry” not “surrey”. According to Wikipedia the writer said, “Oh, it’s just a nice word”.
The RCAF is the only air force in the world to win an Olympic gold medal in hockey.
What about if you really wanted Dandelion and Burdock? I quite like it, myself, but I wouldn’t want to cause a bomb scare by asking for a soft drink.
Burdock is not as common as dandelion, but it can be found on waste ground, here and there. Apparently the drink is made from the roots.
Living in PA in the 70s I encountered a lot of local beer and also saw the breweries that produced them slowly disappear. There were multiple breweries supplying any identifiable region. A few of the larger breweries advertised on TV. Beer was sold at beverage stores in PA. These stores were usually big open spaces with stack after stack of cases of beer. Half the beer was 5 or 6 national brands and the rest local when I first saw one. By the end of the 70s most of those small breweries had gone away. A few continued to produce small quantities for a little while, some were purchased by the larger ones. An early success was Rolling Rock, well known for watery beer in small bottles, often the lowest price per case a available.
As noted in the above, the real credit goes to California Senator Alan Cranston.
That’s certainly true, but plenty of small brewers closed during prohibition. Albany, NY, for instance had 11 breweries before prohibition and only three once it ended, and those three could not get national distribution (some of the 11 did). So the national brands took over.
There were regional brands like Genesse and Utica Club, and New York City was able to support Rheingold, Ballentine, and Piels into the 60s. But the public was used to the taste of the big beer product (Miller, Budweiser, etc.) and to survive the brewers had to imitate it (Gennesse and Utica Club were considered secont-rate versions). Nearly all the small breweries failed or were bought out and the landscape was bleak until craft brewers came along.
It’s not fascist at all, but if you zoom in on the Navistar proving grounds just west of South Bend, IN, you can still see something written in trees.
I’ll have you (RC) not disparage Gennesse Cream Ale, SIR. Truly a drink of the gods.
I have known about Tom Swift and the “Tom Swifties” puns, such as “I dropped my toothpaste”, said Tom crestfallenly.
What I recently learned was that in the books, Tom Swift was an inventor. He had one book called Tom Swift and His Electric Rifle. Years later when something was invented that was similar to the Electric Rifle from the book the inventor named it after Tom Swift’s invention. It was an acronym of Tom (A) Swift’s Electric Rifle - taser.
I agree on the Gennessee Cream Ale. It was a worthy stand in for Little Kings down here in the south!
I’m sure some of you were already aware, but I just found out that Bob Ross was a 20 military veteran and served time as a drill sergeant.
Yes, Bob Ross’s military career is true and lasted 20 years. After enlisting at the age of 18, Bob Ross’s Air Force service would have him working in a starkly different environment than that which inspired his usual calm demeanor. This is because Bob Ross was a drill sergeant.
The military career of Bob Ross is something of a legend, but it’s absolutely true and helped craft the painter we all know and love. Ross wasn’t only a drill sergeant but would achieve the rank of master sergeant serving as a first sergeant at Eielson Air Force Base, Alaska.
I’m just envisioning DS Ross, “And with this happy little accident, we’re all going for a 10 mile run.”
Of course, that’s coming from someone who’s image of drill sergeant’s was formed by Full Metal Jacket, Heartbreak Ridge, and The D.I.