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1. Greg Casey says

   December 17, 2018 at 3:56 pm

   If the saying is true that the pen is mightier than the sword then Chicago’s La Salle Street has a special place in American brewing history. It is where Dr. John Ewald Siebel, at 92 La Salle, penned the following wonderfully creative quote published in the February, 1883 issue of the American Chemical Review aimed at critics of the industry’s widespread use of rice and corn based malt substitutes:

   “The chronical and antiquated growler, as well as the hypocritical croaker, will of course interpose their silly notions, viz: that beer must be produced from malt, hops, yeast and water exclusively.”

   A quarter century later, Dr. Robert Wahl prepared his arguments in the offices of the American Brewers Review at 146 La Salle to defend the right of American brewers to use corn and rice in the brewing of America’s National Beverage – our adjunct lager beer. Presenting these at Federal hearings on standards for beer held July 31, 1908 at the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Wahl famously stated:

   “The all-malt beer has become, in the minds of the brewers’ Committee, almost extinct in America. The opinion of the Brewers’ Committee was “let these beers rest in peace.” Why resurrect them?”

   It is because of the efforts of La Salle Street men such as Siebel and Wahl that repeated attempts in the half-century prior to Prohibition to forcibly impose an “American Reinheitsgebot” failed. Freedom of choice is the foundation of innovation and their legacies thrive every time an American craft brewer chooses to produce a beer employing anything but malt, hops, water and yeast.