On Food and Cooking

colonists seem to have been more interested
in making whiskey than beer (p. 760). We had
no strong national tradition in the matter of
beer, so the way was clear for later German
immigrants to set the taste around 1840, when
someone — perhaps one John Wagner near
Philadelphia — introduced the newly
available lager yeast and technique, and the
distinctive brew caught on.
Both Milwaukee and St. Louis quickly
became centers of lager brewing: in the
former, Pabst, Miller, and Schlitz; in the
latter, Anheuser and Busch; and Stroh in
Detroit all got their starts in the 1850s and
1860s, and Coors in Denver in the 1870s.
Several of these names and their light,
Pilsner-style beers remain dominant today,
while the stronger traditional brews of
England and Germany appeal to a relatively
small number of beer lovers. The only
indigenous American style of beer is “steam
beer,” a rare relic of the California Gold Rush.