Great Scott!

Charlie Papazian's writings through the Examiner always tend to intrigue me as well as forcing me to ponder various beer questions. The most recent one  found by Papazian asks what might have happened if we didn't have Prohibition in the 1920's.

I tend to agree with what he thinks might have become of the beer seen here in America had that historical timeline of events not taken place. The deeper question I came up with is what would the beer scene be today if the market hadn't crashed in 1929? We obviously would have dodged the Great Depression.

As we take a slight adventure in playing with the space-time continuum in terms of the Great Depression, we know that many American breweries that started up again after Prohibition didn't make it. The ones that survived changed the final product due to economic struggle eventually became what some of us know as the evil empire i.e. Coors, Miller etc.

The final beer product became more of a riced-up and watered-down lager. Unfortunately this became the American staple for beer at the time. We all know what it led to today. Now, back to my original question. if there wasn't a Great Depression, do the major American breweries at the time keep on making better beer? Would many of the smaller breweries that we enjoy today even exist? Would Doc Brown still have poured half of a Miller High Life into Mr. Fusion?