Historical Background

The 18th Amendment to the US Constitution reads as follows: “After one year from the ratification of this article, the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors … is hereby prohibited.” The thirty-sixth state (Nebraska) ratified the amendment on January 16, 1919, and thus, Prohibition was slated to begin on January 17, 1920. During the one-year interregnum, the government was charged with crafting the details of Prohibition through a federal enforcement law. Perhaps the most important question legislators faced was just what constitutes an “intoxicating liquor.”

The designers of the 18th Amendment overrode the wishes of hardcore prohibitionists to have it outlaw “alcoholic beverages,” fearing this would create a much steeper road toward passage. Everyone knows that alcoholic beverages include beer, cider, wine, whiskey, gin, and rum. But the phrase “intoxicating liquors” is somewhat ambiguous. Moderates might be persuaded to jump onto the Prohibition bandwagon if they felt that its target was high-proof liquor, but that lower-proof options such as beer and cider, and perhaps even wine, would be permitted.Footnote ³ In fact, the brewing industry had long pushed beer as a “non-intoxicating” beverage. In a 1915 advertisement, shown in Figure 1, The Grand Rapids Brewing Company noted that beer was the drink that leads to sobriety. “Beer is a stimulant that never leads to drunkenness!” Furthermore, the ad offered the testimony of a doctor saying that beer was simply a “food tonic” and a “stimulant of the mildest form.”Footnote ⁴ In fact, since its founding in 1862, the United States Brewers Association (USBA) had worked to define beer as a drink of moderation and temperance, in hopes of fending off strict regulations and high taxes.Footnote ⁵

Figure 1. 1915 beer advertisement.

Source: Daily Tribune (Wisconsin Rapids, WI), February 17, 1915, p. 5.

When the Prohibition-enforcement bill, which would later become known as the Volstead Act, was introduced in June 1919, brewers—and many consumers—were distressed that it restrictively defined intoxicating beverages as anything containing more than 0.5 percent alcohol by volume (ABV). During the ensuing Congressional debate, several representatives pushed to allow beer by setting a higher “intoxicating” threshold, such as 3.5 to 6 percent alcohol. Proponents of allowing beer even presented the testimony of six medical experts, including Dr. John Marshall from the University of Pennsylvania and Dr. William J. Geis from Columbia University, who testified to beer’s non-intoxicating qualities.Footnote ⁶ Nevertheless, the bone-dry advocates had the votes, and the Volstead Act was passed with its 0.5 percent definition of “intoxicating liquors” intact.Footnote ⁷ Brewers did not give up, however. Days before the 18th Amendment was set to take effect, three Rhode Island breweries sought an injunction against the Volstead Act, saying that it arbitrarily and oppressively defined things that are not actually intoxicating, i.e., beer, as intoxicating liquors.Footnote ⁸ The injunction was denied and Prohibition began, with its 0.5 percent limit intact, on January 17, 1920.

Throughout the 1920s, brewing (and sometimes wine) interests spearheaded efforts to modify the Volstead Act’s definition of intoxicating liquors to allow their products, even while the 18th Amendment would remain in effect. By the end of the decade, around eight hundred “modification” bills had been proposed, but all died in committee—none ever made it to a vote of the full legislature.Footnote ⁹ After the Great Depression arrived, however, reform advocates highlighted the potential economic benefits that beer’s return could create.Footnote ¹⁰ In the summer of 1931, the Wisconsin American Federation of Labor endorsed Volstead modification, since the production, distribution, and service of beer would create “employment for hundreds of thousands of American workers.”Footnote ¹¹ Representative Gerald Boileau of Wisconsin similarly argued that modification “would give employment to a vast army. It would give the farmer an outlet for his grain. The government would receive huge sums as revenue. Such legislation would give sufficient relief to end the present economic depression.”Footnote ¹² In May 1932, proponents of beer’s return staged massive demonstrations and parades across the nation—the largest of which was an eleven-hour march with one hundred and fifty thousand participants through the streets of New York City, shouting “We Want Beer!”Footnote ¹³

While Republican President Herbert Hoover offered breweries the cold shoulder, the Democratic Party’s June 1932 platform expressed its unambiguous support—“We advocate the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment.” In acknowledgement that this could take months, if not years—or may not be possible at all—the platform added that “Pending Repeal, we favor immediate modification of the Volstead Act; to legalize the manufacture and sale of beer and other beverages of such alcoholic content as is permissible under the Constitution.”Footnote ¹⁴

Franklin D. Roosevelt won the November 1932 election in a landslide, and expectations for legal beer in 1933 were high. Fred Pabst, chairman of Milwaukee’s Pabst Brewing Company, quickly suggested that brewers avoid the temptation to push for the return of the old saloon but focus instead on spinning the temperate qualities of beer. The tavern, Pabst said, should be presented as a place where people could “indulge in a friendly game of cards, read magazines or newspapers, and make themselves at home without spending much money.” He further noted that “good beer will do a great deal toward promotion of temperance” as the younger generation will choose beer at five cents a glass over the bootlegger’s hard liquor.Footnote ¹⁵

On March 13, 1933, nine days after taking office, FDR asked Congress to statutorily modify the Volstead Act to legalize the manufacture and sale of beer.Footnote ¹⁶ Congress quickly took up the Cullen-Harrison Act, informally known as the “beer bill,” which redefined “intoxicating beverages” as those exceeding 3.2 percent alcohol by weight (ABW). This was not an arbitrary number. The brewing industry claimed that 3.2 ABW—which is 4 percent ABV, around what a typical light beer is today—was the minimum alcohol level that could deliver a palatable beer that people would enjoy and want to purchase. To make beer with much below this alcohol level, brewers would have to stop the fermentation process early, and thus the beer would not be purified, nor would it have the expected beer aroma. Edward Lansberg, president of the Blatz Brewing Company, felt that 3.2 ABW hit the sweet spot—“This beer ought to satisfy anybody unless they want something to get drunk on … It is a palatable beer and still non intoxicating in fact.”Footnote ¹⁷

While the Congressional debate highlighted beer’s potential economic ramifications, the major sticking point for several legislators was whether 3.2 beer was truly “non-intoxicating,” and hence permissible under the US Constitution. Kansas Representative Ulysses S. Guyer felt his colleagues were being hypocritical in declaring 3.2 ABW beer a non-intoxicant. This bill, Guyer said, is clearly “in violation of the Constitution of the United States, and I believe it to be in violation of my oath of office” to uphold it.Footnote ¹⁸ To support their position, Congressional advocates of the modification bill again brought in medical experts who testified to the harmlessness of 3.2 beer—the human stomach, one of these authorities argued, simply could not hold enough 3.2 beer to cause intoxication.Footnote ¹⁹ Additionally, pro-beer forces highlighted the testimony of Yale’s Dr. Yandell Henderson, who claimed that beer was typically consumed with or after dinner and that food slowed alcohol’s rate of absorption. Henderson contrasted this with the cocktail scene, where, in the absence of good beer, participants indulged in “highly intoxicating” distilled spirits.Footnote ²⁰

The modification bill passed both Houses with solid majorities, and President Roosevelt signed the Cullen-Harrison Act on March 22, 1933. The law set 12:01 a.m. April 7 as the moment that “non-intoxicating” 3.2 beer would be allowed. As most states had their own statutory or constitutional prohibitions against intoxicating beverages, they had to likewise declare 3.2 beer non-intoxicating before it would be permitted therein. Twenty states had cleared the way for 3.2 beer by April 7, and by December 5, 1933, when the 21st “Repeal” Amendment was ratified, thus ending federal Prohibition, 3.2 beer was being sold legally in forty-three states.Footnote ²¹

While brewers were ecstatic with their hard-fought victory of having their product declared non-intoxicating, they understood the delicacy of their situation. Even prior to the passage of the beer bill in that spring, the editors of the Brewers News trade journal noted that “1933 will prove an eventful year for the brewing industry. It will require greater leadership, greater foresight in planning … than ever before.” While the November 1932 election suggested that public opinion overwhelmingly favored legal beer’s return, the “path of the brewing industry will not be strewn with roses.” Prohibitionists, the editors noted, will be watching for any missteps, and thus brewers must conduct “business in a manner that will be beyond all reproach and that will not provide a peg on which to hang up complaints by the potential troublemakers.”Footnote ²²

Col. Jacob Ruppert, owner of the New York Yankees as well as the Jacob Ruppert Brewing Company of New York, suggested that breweries stress “the temperance end and the health and nutrition value of beer” rather than the celebratory excesses that beer could bring.Footnote ²³ In fact, Ruppert, who was also serving as president of the United States Brewers Association, strongly cautioned against a “carnival” welcoming 3.2 beer after the clocks turned past midnight on April 7, going so far as to ask breweries to not make deliveries until dawn.Footnote ²⁴ While several New York City brewers honored Ruppert’s request, most of the nation celebrated what was dubbed “New Beer’s Eve” with the very carnival atmosphere that Ruppert feared. And the party continued strongly throughout the day and evening of April 7.Footnote ²⁵ Despite this, many cities reported no arrests for intoxication. In fact, while the New York City Night Court typically adjudicated ten to fifteen cases of public intoxication per evening during Prohibition—when people were often drinking strong liquor in speakeasies—not a single case came before the court on the evening of April 7. “Beer must be a temperance drink,” quipped Albert Volgenau, the court’s chief clerk.Footnote ²⁶ While Michigan state law prevented New Beer’s Eve from arriving until May 11th—although the state celebrated it just as hard on that evening as other locations did on April 7^th—the Lansing Police noted that night was the first in several years without an arrest for drunkenness. The Lansing State Journal offered this as proof that “Congress was right in declaring 3.2 beer non-intoxicating.”Footnote ²⁷

Brewers viewed the orderly return of legal beer on April 7^th as an important victory in the industry’s long-term quest to define their product as a temperance beverage. The trade journal Western Brewer encouraged brewers to continue to stress the temperance function of beer. “The chief ground upon which the merit of beer has always been placed … is its agency in favor of true temperance which has been so strikingly demonstrated in the history of our country and has been recognized by the leading minds of the Nation from colonial times down to the present.”Footnote ²⁸

By the fall of 1933, it was clear that Prohibition would soon end, and brewers had to contemplate their post-Repeal strategy when they would again have to compete with stronger legal options such as wine and liquor. In November 1933, the editors of Modern Brewery Age suggested that “In the haste to take advantage of repeal and its opportunities, we must not lose sight of the fact that 3.2 beer has the definite advantage of being a non-intoxicating beverage, and this advantage must be perpetuated.”Footnote ²⁹ They suggested that the industry itself should work to make a clear distinction between non-intoxicating and “full strength” beer and try to keep in place the clear tax and regulatory advantages that went along with the non-intoxicating distinction.

An advertisement, which did not provide attribution of who placed it, in the December 1933 Western Brewer trade journal went much further when it asked brewers and beer wholesalers, “How long are you going to permit unjust and discriminatory taxation to be levied against your industry?” The ad noted that 3.2 beer had been declared non-intoxicating not just by the federal government but by most states and many local communities. “Has anybody ever tried to figure out why there should be a tax on [non-intoxicating] beer any more than there should be on Coca Cola, Ginger ale, or any other soft drink?”Footnote ³⁰ While the government brought back 3.2 beer in April 1933 in part to raise tax revenue, the clear hope was that with Prohibition’s demise, liquor taxes would shift entirely to “intoxicating” drinks, and that 3.2 beer would be liberated from taxation. Alas, this did not occur.

When Repeal arrived on December 5, 1933, the federal government set its tax at $6 per barrel for full-strength beer but kept a $5 tax on barrels of 3.2 beer, as had been instituted in April. Many states, while still taxing 3.2, also gave it a tax advantage over full-strength beer. Even apart from taxation, Anheuser-Busch successfully lobbied the Missouri legislature to keep strong legal distinctions between 3.2 and full-strength beer. The non-intoxicating 3.2 faced much lower Missouri licensing fees than did stronger beer, and it could be sold at extended hours, as well as on Sundays when stronger options were outlawed.Footnote ³¹ As a result, Anheuser-Busch said it planned to continue devoting 60 percent of its production to a 3.2 beer.Footnote ³² Liquor interests strongly resented the advantages that 3.2 beer was given, as they claimed that 3.2 beer was indeed intoxicating. In December 1934, Joseph Garavelli, president of the Licensed Liquor Dealers Association of St. Louis, said that while his organization had nothing against 3.2 beer, “we believe that [it] should be placed under the license of hard liquor.”Footnote ³³ In response, the Kansas City Star reported that the “big brewery interests of Missouri hope to save their pet child, the 3.2 beer law,” to keep its many legal advantages in place.Footnote ³⁴

In fact, Missouri brewers, led by the powerhouse of Anheuser-Busch, succeeded in keeping 3.2’s legal distinctions in place. As a result, even three years after the return of full-strength beer, more than 27 percent of the beer drunk in Missouri was of the 3.2 variety.Footnote ³⁵ In fact, the legal advantages that Missouri gave to 3.2 beer persisted for decades. In 1958, large Missouri brewers like Anheuser-Busch, Falstaff, and Goetz were still devoting more than 20 percent of their production to 3.2 beer to serve not just Missouri, but other states where 3.2 beer maintained a major legal presence.Footnote ³⁶ As one small example of a legal advantage for 3.2 beer, in 1980, the city of St. Louis charged $5 for temporary “picnic licenses” to sell 3.2 beer, but the same license to sell stronger beer cost $25.Footnote ³⁷

In fact, 3.2 beer maintained a key presence in many areas of the United States. According to a report on details of beer and liquor control laws in each state in December 1938—five years after the fall of Prohibition—thirteen of the forty-eight states had a significant legal role for 3.2 beer.Footnote ³⁸ For example, while California allowed stronger beer to be served in bottles, only 3.2 beer could be sold on draft. The state also permitted nothing stronger than 3.2 beer sales within 1.5 miles of a college campus.Footnote ³⁹ Utah allowed the sale of full-strength beer and liquor in state liquor stores for off-premises consumption, but nothing stronger than 3.2 beer could be purchased in restaurants, bars, grocery stores, and convenience stores. Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Virginia all joined Missouri in having completely separate control laws for 3.2 beer versus strong alcoholic beverages in 1938. In these states, 3.2 beer permits were generally cheaper to obtain and far less restrictive than those for stronger options with respect to where, when, and how it could be sold. While Ohio had only one liquor control law, it had separate tax statutes and licenses for 3.2 beer (which, again, were lower/cheaper). The legal codes of both Kentucky and Texas explicitly allowed otherwise “dry” municipalities a “local option” to permit only 3.2 beer. Finally, in both Kansas and Oklahoma, 3.2 beer was the only legal alcohol—nothing stronger could be produced or sold within these states.

By 1945, Louisiana and West Virginia had joined the legion of 3.2 beer territories. In fact, between 1945 and 1980, the only legal beer sold in West Virginia was the “non-intoxicating” 3.2.Footnote ⁴⁰ Three-two beer continued to play a major legal role in most of these fifteen states until the 1980s, when 3.2 laws were dropped by all but five of them.

The Preponderance of “3.2 Beer” in American Newspapers

A quick way to at least roughly quantify the importance of 3.2 beer in the United States over time is to examine how frequently it was mentioned in the nation’s newspapers. Figure 2 plots an index, whereby 1935 = 100, showing how prevalent the phrase “3.2 beer” was in a broad sample of American newspapers from 1933 to 2023.Footnote ⁴¹ While it is not illustrated, since the necessary change in scaling would make the subsequent variation difficult to see, this index takes on a value of 896 in 1933. Thus, by 1935, the frequency of the phrase “3.2 beer” had fallen by nearly a factor of nine from its peak two years earlier. This is not surprising as the allowance of 3.2 beer in spring 1933 was one of the major news stories (among many) of that year. By 1935, 3.2 beer was not only old news, but it had also been removed from the legal codes of the majority of states.

Figure 2. The frequency of the phrase “3.2 beer” in US newspapers (1935 = 100).

Source: Author calculations from Newspapers.com search.

What is surprising, however, is that the frequency of “3.2 beer” in the newspapers did not continue to fade after 1935. In fact, the value of the index in 1976 was more than double its 1936 level. Brewing interests continued to nurture their “pet project” for decades after its creation. They wisely took advantage of the government’s declaration that 3.2 beer was “non-intoxicating,” since, as will be discussed in more detail below, it allowed access to markets that may otherwise have been closed to them. Mentions of 3.2 beer dropped sharply in the mid-1980s as 3.2 beer exited the legal code of all but a handful of states. Since 1990, the prevalence of “3.2 beer” in newspapers has remained relatively stable, albeit at a much lower level, to the present day.

“Non-intoxicating” 3.2 for the US Military

While there were scores of smaller legal roles for 3.2 beer, we focus on five major ones across the post-Prohibition era. We begin with 3.2 beer’s prominent presence on US military bases. Since the early twentieth century, alcohol had been forbidden in post exchanges, canteens, or other military premises. But the 1933 declaration that 3.2 beer was non-intoxicating led to a long-time military embrace of 3.2 beer. Proponents of 3.2 beer argued that it was better to offer a low-proof accessible option where soldiers could be supervised, rather than have them wander off base for adventures that could lead to trouble. In fact, on April 7, 1933, US military personnel were allowed to purchase and consume 3.2 beer on military bases even if those bases were located in states or municipalities that were otherwise dry (as military bases were federal installations, state law could not infringe on their operations).Footnote ⁴² Thus, while Kansas was bone dry until 1937, the canteen at Fort Leavenworth offered 3.2 beer on April 7, 1933.Footnote ⁴³ Even after December 1933’s Repeal, the military kept the policy of allowing nothing stronger than “non-intoxicating” 3.2 beer for enlisted members in post exchanges and canteens—and this was true even in states where stronger options were permitted.

World War II brought prohibitionists back to the forefront as they pushed for wartime bans on all alcohol, including beer.Footnote ⁴⁴ In response, the USBA created its Defense Liaison Committee, which was headed by Falstaff Brewing president Alvin Griesedieck. The committee encouraged all brewery employees to purchase war bonds—in fact, New York’s Jacob Ruppert gave war bonds to his employees as their 1941 Christmas bonus and further matched any of his employees’ purchases of war bonds, thus doubling their investment.Footnote ⁴⁵ Led by Griesedieck, the brewing industry lobbied strongly—and effectively—in favor of beer’s vital role to the war effort. Not only did beer tax revenues help fund the war effort, but brewer’s yeast, a byproduct of the beer production process, was spun as a rich source of vitamins and nutrition that could be used as a dietary supplement for humans and farm animals. Perhaps most importantly, brewers highlighted beer’s role in boosting morale and lifting spirts, not just for those on the battlefield, but also those fighting the war back home. The brewer’s offensive succeeded as the government declared beer an essential industry. In fact, US breweries were required to set aside 15 percent of wartime production to making the 3.2 beer that would be allocated to the troops.Footnote ⁴⁶ While officers were able to purchase liquor and other stronger options, enlisted soldiers, regardless of age, were generally allotted one case of 3.2 beer—that is 24 bottles—per month, when available during the war.Footnote ⁴⁷

In the spring of 1966, the Defense Department considered changing its policy of allowing personnel to drink 3.2 beer regardless of age and, instead, simply abide by the drinking age laws of the state in which the military base was housed. As many states did not permit the consumption of any alcohol, including 3.2 beer, until the age of twenty-one, this would have been an important economic loss for the nation’s large brewers who were still devoting significant portions of their output to 3.2 beer for relevant markets. The brewery lobby again sprang into action arguing that if soldiers were old enough to fight, they were old enough to drink non-intoxicating 3.2 beer.Footnote ⁴⁸ Once again, breweries won the battle. In fact, enlisted personnel, regardless of age and state law, could drink 3.2 beer on military bases until the mid-1980s when the federal government passed the Uniform Drinking Age Act which succeeded in standardizing age twenty-one for any alcohol.Footnote ⁴⁹

“Non-intoxicating” 3.2 Beer’s Allowance in Otherwise Dry Areas

Prohibition’s repeal on December 5, 1933, brought legal liquor to 20 states, while the other 28 states remained “dry” under their state-level prohibitions of intoxicating liquors. But, to the delight of the beer industry, the declaration that 3.2 beer was legally non-intoxicating meant that it continued to be permitted in many otherwise dry territories in the post-Prohibition era. In fact, only five states—Utah, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, and Kansas—allowed no alcohol whatsoever in the immediate aftermath of Prohibition’s demise. The other twenty-three dry states allowed “non-intoxicating” 3.2 beer.

In late 1933, Utah’s legislature voted to relax its 1917 prohibition law by joining most other states in declaring 3.2 beer non-intoxicating. This policy went into effect on January 1, 1934. As a result, New Year’s Eve featured particularly heady celebrations across the state. The owner of the Hotel Ben Lomond (today known as the Bigelow Hotel) told the Ogden Examiner that his restaurant tables were entirely booked for the festivities, which was a welcome change after years of the Depression.Footnote ⁵⁰ At midnight, the establishment’s champagne flutes were dusted off and legally filled with the bubbles of 3.2 beer as patrons toasted the arrival of 1934. Because New Year’s Eve fell on a Sunday, Utah’s clubs and dance halls had to remain shuttered until midnight on account of the state’s “blue laws.” But after the clock struck twelve—making it Monday—their doors swung open, and patrons were able to buy 3.2 beer. Despite a Salt Lake City ordinance against dancing after midnight, authorities generously “winked an eye” and allowed citizens to shake a leg until 3 a.m. in the city’s vibrant clubs, hotels, and restaurants.Footnote ⁵¹

One year later, when the calendar turned to 1935, 3.2 beer remained the only alcohol legally available not just in Utah, but also in 12 otherwise “dry” states (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Maine, Nebraska, North Carlonia, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Wyoming). By the end of the decade, most of these states were allowing stronger alcohol, but a few held out in allowing nothing but the “non-intoxicating” 3.2 beer. Kansas permitted nothing stronger than 3.2 beer until 1949, when it repealed its longstanding (since 1880) prohibition. In Oklahoma, 3.2 beer was the only alcohol allowed between July 1933 and the repeal of the state’s constitutional prohibition in June 1959. Dry interests had attempted to have even 3.2 beer outlawed across Oklahoma in 1941 by arguing that it was, in fact, intoxicating, and thus in violation of the state’s constitution. However, the Oklahoma Supreme Court upheld 3.2’s non-intoxicating definition.Footnote ⁵² Mississippi held out as the only low-alcohol-beer-allowing “dry” state even longer. Nothing stronger than 4 percent ABW beer was permitted between 1934 and 1966, when Mississippi finally ended its 1908 statutory prohibition.

There were also many “dry” municipalities located within otherwise wet states that allowed 3.2 beer because of its non-intoxicating classification. In fact, five “local option” states—Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Virginia—outright prevented dry localities from outlawing 3.2 beer, since it had been declared legally non-intoxicating during the 1930s.Footnote ⁵³ Narrowing in on Virginia’s 1934 liquor control law, localities could choose to allow strong beer, wine, and liquor; strong beer and wine only; or just 3.2 beer. Total “dryness” of the pre-1933 variety was no longer an option. On August 8, 1934, the state’s first county-level local option vote was held in the dry stalwart of Rockingham County. The tally was 2,435 to 558 against liquor and 2,440 to 556 against the sale of full-strength beer and wine. As a result, only 3.2 beer was permitted countywide.Footnote ⁵⁴ While the allowance of 3.2 beer peeved many of Rockingham’s hardcore drys, Virginia never did allow localities to outlaw “non-intoxicating” 3.2 beer. In 1977—when Virginia finally eliminated the 3.2 beer from its legal code (i.e., it no longer distinguished between 3.2 and full-strength beer)—the state’s fifty dry municipalities had all been permitting the sale of 3.2 beer.Footnote ⁵⁵

While dry interests did not embrace 3.2 beer with open arms, they clearly viewed it as a viable alternative that could allow them to more successfully outlaw stronger alcohol. In the lead-up to a 1935 local option election in Greeley, Colorado, dry forces placed advertisements—one of which is shown in Figure 3—making it clear in large bold letters that, “A vote for local option does not affect the sale of 3.2 beer in Greeley.” The strategy worked as the prohibition passed overwhelmingly.Footnote ⁵⁶ Interestingly, Alfred V. Dalrymple, the head of the US Prohibition Bureau when it was disbanded in 1933, told reporters that had the drys allowed low alcohol beer and light wines from Prohibition’s start, “the 18^th Amendment would have remained in the Constitution for 100 years.”Footnote ⁵⁷

Figure 3. An advertisement in relation to a local option election in 1935.

Source: Greeley Daily Tribune, June 21, 1935, p. 7.

Florida kept 3.2 ABW as its definition of legally non-intoxicating beverages until April 1984. Just prior to this change, citizens in the state’s seven dry counties—Hardee, Lafayette, Liberty, Madison, Santa Rosa, Suwanee, and Washington—could buy 3.2 beer, but nothing stronger.Footnote ⁵⁸ Even after leaving the state’s legal code, 3.2 beer maintained a presence in Florida, as the Miami Dolphins football team continued to sell nothing stronger than 3.2 beer at its home games for several more seasons to try to keep its fans from becoming too unruly.Footnote ⁵⁹ Kansas’s “dry” under local option counties were required to allow 3.2 beer, but nothing stronger, until April 2019, after which the state began to permit retailers with 3.2 licenses to sell beer up to 6 percent ABV.

In December 1957, Oklahoma—which at the time allowed no alcohol statewide stronger than 3.2 beer—held a special election to decide whether counties could vote to go completely dry and prohibit 3.2 beer by local option. To fight against this potential change, brewing interests created the Oklahoma United Committee, which was headed by M. F. Dykema, president of Oklahoma City’s Progress Brewing Company. Oklahoma United went full throttle in promoting the benefits that 3.2 beer brought to the state, such as directly employing more than eleven thousand Oklahomans and raising nearly $11 million in state and local taxes.Footnote ⁶⁰

In the lead up to the election, Oklahoma United blanketed state newspapers with a series of ads encouraging a no vote on the county 3.2 beer option. One ad encouraged voters to preserve the legal sale of 3.2 beer, “which pays Oklahoma $100,000 daily in taxes and payrolls.” Another noted that the county local option would create law enforcement problems and “move the sale of beer away from the bright light of public view” toward the bootleggers.Footnote ⁶¹ Another ad—this one from the Oklahoma Division of the US Brewers Foundation—shown in Figure 4, notes that the beer industry is a vital cog in making Oklahoma go, saying that “Every citizen profits as a result of the sale of legal 3.2 beer.” Thanks to the beer lobby’s efforts, the local option bill was defeated, and 3.2 beer remained legal statewide. Even after Oklahoma ended its prohibition in 1959, counties that voted to go dry under local option had to allow 3.2 beer. In fact, while no Oklahoma counties are dry today, if any vote dry in the future, they will have to allow 3.2 beer.

Figure 4. US Brewers Foundation ad from 1957.

Source: The Daily Oklahoman, August 22, 1957, p. 33.

While the brewing lobby was successful in keeping non-intoxicating 3.2 beer legal in many dry areas, it did lose some battles to dry forces. Texas, Ohio, and Kentucky each allowed localities to outlaw all alcohol, including 3.2 beer. In San Angelo, Texas, for example, voters in Precinct 1 approved 3.2 beer but not liquor in 1936, while those in Precinct 2 voted against all alcohol, including 3.2 beer.Footnote ⁶² Around the same time, voters in Kerr County, Texas’s Precinct 4 approved of legal 3.2 beer, but voted to outlaw liquor. By 1941, half of Texas was “bone dry,” 30 percent was “wet,” and 20 percent allowed only 3.2 beer and nothing stronger.Footnote ⁶³ These outcomes impacted breweries as well. Because San Antonio Brewing, one of Texas’s largest breweries, was located in a fully “wet” part of Texas, it was permitted to brew strong beer and sell it in strong beer counties. Still, B.B. McGimsey, the brewery’s vice president and general manager, said that San Antonio Brewing would also “continue to brew 3.2 beer for dry territories, it being our policy to conform to all local option laws on this subject.”Footnote ⁶⁴

Ohio experienced a very similar outcome, with around half of its geographic areas being completely dry and another quarter allowing only 3.2 beer in the late 1930s.Footnote ⁶⁵ In fact, several Ohio municipalities remained “3.2 beer only” for decades. Oberlin, home of Oberlin College, was one such city. When Ohio eliminated its separate definitions for 3.2 and regular beer in 1982—defining beer simply as anything between 0.5 and 6 percent alcohol—an Oberlin citizens’ group objected, saying that the city should be allowed to keep its 3.2 percent maximum. US District Judge Ann Aldrich ruled against the group, saying, “What Oberlin cannot do under the new [state] law is to permit [only] the 3.2 percent beer… Oberlin’s choice will be one of ‘high or dry.’”Footnote ⁶⁶ The city ultimately decided to allow full-strength beer, but not liquor.

Louisiana passed a law in 1943 (further strengthened in 1948) preventing parishes and municipalities from outlawing 3.2 under local option. Before this time, parishes could choose to be completely dry, but the state mandated that 3.2 beer be allowed in otherwise dry areas to help the state boost tax revenue. As many rural Louisiana municipalities were “dry” under local option in the postwar era, 3.2 beer remained a significant part of Louisiana’s beer scene until the 1980s.Footnote ⁶⁷

Sunday Sales of 3.2 Beer

State “blue laws” have long restricted certain activities on Sundays across the United States. Perhaps the most common of these was the prohibition of alcohol sales. But Congress’s declaration that 3.2 beer was non-intoxicating was a potential game-changer for the beer industry’s approach to blue laws. When Utah tried to forbid Sunday sales of 3.2 beer in 1936, beer interests objected fiercely. Since 3.2 beer had been declared a non-intoxicating beverage under both Utah and federal law, Ogden Mayor Harman Peery suggested that if it could not be sold on Sundays, then other non-intoxicating beverages such as Coca-Cola would likewise have to be restricted. Utah’s liquor commission acceded to Peery’s logic and allowed Sunday sales of 3.2 beer while banning stronger alcohol.Footnote ⁶⁸ This policy lasted until 2019, when Sunday sales of 5 percent beer were permitted (Utah breweries, wineries, and distilleries were permitted to sell directly to consumers on Sundays—as they still are today—in the decade before this change).Footnote ⁶⁹

Missouri maintained its 3.2 beer-only Sunday blue law for sixty years after the fall of Prohibition. This gave Anheuser Busch, which made ample supplies of 3.2 Budweiser to sell in 3.2 markets, a clear advantage over competitors producing wine and liquor. The state partially relaxed this policy in 1982 when it began to allow “sports complexes” to sell 5 percent ABV beer on Sundays. Busch Memorial Stadium—home of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, which happened to be owned by Anheuser-Busch—quickly switched to selling 5 percent beer after nearly fifty years of selling nothing stronger than 3.2 beer at Cardinals games. During the May 7 – 9, 1982 weekend series against the Atlanta Braves, Busch Stadium sold the last of its 3.2 Budweiser and began to sell the product at full strength.Footnote ⁷⁰ Outside of sports stadiums, Missouri kept its only-3.2-on-Sunday rule until 1993, when the sale of 5 percent beer (incidentally, the exact ABV of Budweiser) was finally permitted statewide on Sundays.Footnote ⁷¹

Ohio was another 3.2 Sunday sales state. In the immediate aftermath of Prohibition, the Buckeye state allowed 3.2 beer Sunday sales, but only for on-premises consumption in bars and restaurants. In February 1935, the state also acceded to allow package sales of 3.2 beer for off-premises consumption.Footnote ⁷² Ohio kept its nothing but 3.2 beer on Sundays law until 1982. Figure 5 shows an advertisement from an East Liverpool, Ohio grocer in 1972 highlighting (bottom center) that they carried 3.2 beer for Sunday sales.

Figure 5. Sunday sales for 3.2 beer advertisement from 1972.

Source: The Evening Review (East Liverpool, OH), February 10, 1972, p. 5.

Minnesota allowed only 3.2 beer sales on Sunday until 1967, when its communities could begin to permit Sunday strong beer and liquor sales under local option, although many municipalities stuck to the only 3.2 on Sunday policy. In fact, the state did not eliminate its 3.2 Sunday sales carve-out until 2017.Footnote ⁷³ South Dakota, which had allowed only 3.2 beer sales on Sundays since the 1930s, likewise began to allow options stronger than 3.2 beer on Sundays by local option in 1973.Footnote ⁷⁴ Colorado restricted Sunday alcohol sales statewide to only 3.2 beer until 2008.Footnote ⁷⁵ Oklahoma maintained 3.2 Sunday sales as a local option—higher proof beverages could also be offered if approved by voters—until 2018.Footnote ⁷⁶ Although Kansas had legal roles for 3.2 beer, it did not allow the sale of any alcohol—not even 3.2 beer—on Sundays until 1987, when it began to allow restaurants to sell 3.2 beer with meals on Sundays by local option.Footnote ⁷⁷ Only in July 2005 were municipalities given the option to permit Sunday liquor and/or full-strength beer sales. Some Kansas communities allowed liquor stores to open, while others permitted only 3.2 beer carry-out sales.Footnote ⁷⁸

Training Wheels for Young Drinkers

Another common legal role for 3.2 beer in the post-Prohibition era was its availability to 18-year-olds. The Cullen-Harrison Act of 1933 set the minimum federal drinking age for “non-intoxicating” 3.2 beer at eighteen. Once liquor, wine, and high-powered beer returned after Repeal, a few states, including New York, New Hampshire, and Georgia, kept eighteen as the minimum age for the purchase of all alcohol. Several other states, such as California, Indiana, Oregon, and Pennsylvania, set the age for all alcohol at twenty-one. But some states chose a hybrid model whereby twenty-one-year-olds could purchase stronger options, but eighteen-year-olds could buy beer. Many of these states granted eighteen-year-olds access to all beer, but a large handful of them permitted eighteen-year-olds access to only 3.2 beer, while twenty-one was the age needed to purchase any alcohol above 3.2 ABW.Footnote ⁷⁹

The argument in favor of making 3.2 beer available to eighteen- to twenty-year-olds was that it might prevent novice drinkers from imbibing the more dangerous, higher-proof options. Many have likened the 3.2 carve-out for eighteen-year-olds as “training wheels” for young drinkers.Footnote ⁸⁰ In the 1970s, four decades after the fall of Prohibition, six states—Colorado, Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Virginia—allowed the sale of 3.2 beer, but nothing stronger, to eighteen-year-olds.Footnote ⁸¹

In the aftermath of the Vietnam War, as well as the reduction in the US voting age from twenty-one to eighteen, many of the states that had previously imposed a flat minimum drinking age of twenty-one began to allow eighteen- (or in some cases nineteen-) year-olds legal access to alcohol. By 1975, twenty-three states allowed teenagers access to full-strength beer, and in many cases, liquor. If these former twenty-one-and-up states had followed the example allowing nothing stronger than 3.2 beer to eighteen-year-olds, the nation may have seen much better outcomes. Unfortunately, the US saw a sharp rise in drunk driving incidents and fatalities amongst teens during the 1970s. Several studies demonstrated strong correlations between teenage injuries and deaths associated with automobile crashes and the legal drinking age in the state in which they occurred, thus prompting the move toward a standardized national drinking age of twenty-one for all alcohol.Footnote ⁸²

While many states, including some that had 3.2 beer laws (e.g., Ohio and Oklahoma), voluntarily raised their minimum drinking age to twenty-one in the early 1980s, others continued to allow beer (some only 3.2) and sometimes liquor, for eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds.Footnote ⁸³ In response, Congress passed the Uniform Drinking Age Act (UDAA) in 1984. This required states to set twenty-one as the legal age for any alcohol over 0.5 percent, or they would lose federal highway funding. South Dakota and Kansas phased out 3.2 beer for eighteen-year-olds in 1984 and 1985, respectively.Footnote ⁸⁴ In 1988, Colorado, which had previously allowed nothing above 3.2 beer at eighteen, became the last state to raise its drinking age to twenty-one.

As suggested by Figure 2, 3.2 beer took a massive hit after the passage of the UDAA. Its accessibility for the younger cohort was amongst the most impactful legal roles for 3.2 beer in the nation. In the years surrounding the passage of the UDAA, many of the 3.2 states—West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, South Dakota, Louisiana, Missouri, and Florida—dropped the Prohibition-era product entirely from their legal codes. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, 3.2 beer remained active in only five states.

Where and How 3.2 Beer Laws

After the fall of Prohibition, the variation in liquor control laws was astounding. Some states required intoxicating beverages to be served only with meals (the city of Phoenix, Arizona further defined a meal as “food taken in sufficient quantities to sustain a human”) while sitting at a table.Footnote ⁸⁵ In direct opposition to that policy, other states, such as South Dakota, outlawed the sale of intoxicating drinks in any place where food was served. Footnote ⁸⁶ In these states, alcohol had to be consumed in an exclusively-for-drinking tavern, and standing while consuming alcohol was perfectly legal. Still other states restricted purchases to be made only for carry-out from state-operated liquor stores. The maze of rules and regulations, sometimes even within one state or municipality, could be quite perplexing. John T. Lewis, collector of internal revenue, confided to a Richmond, California audience that “I have been unable to find out whether you can take a drink [in California] standing up, sitting down, or whether you can drink until you can’t either stand up or sit down.”Footnote ⁸⁷ The Roanoke Times retorted that whether a particular law requires you to “stand up or sit down to do your drinking isn’t especially material. The important thing is not to be carried out afterwards.”Footnote ⁸⁸

Consider Utah’s liquor law, passed after the state’s prohibition was repealed in 1935. Utah required intoxicating beverages to be purchased at liquor stores run by the Utah Liquor Commission. The Salt Lake Tribune referred to this commission as the state’s “full dictator of liquor traffic.” Utahans had to apply (at a cost of 50 cents) for a state permit allowing them to purchase liquor, and the commission could deny or rescind them without appeal.Footnote ⁸⁹ Furthermore, permits would not be awarded to—or would be taken from—“habitual drunkards.” In terms of on sales, Utah allowed no alcohol “by the drink,” not even in restaurants with meals. Importantly, however, Utah exempted 3.2 beer from all these restrictions. The purchase of 3.2 beer did not require a state permit, and it could be bought at grocery stores, convenience stores, restaurants, hotels, and bars. Utah restricted the number of licenses it granted to sell 3.2 beer on draft based on city population, but it did not restrict the number of licenses to sell bottled 3.2 beer.

The different treatments of 3.2 beer versus stronger options continued to play a major role in Utah’s alcohol scene for the next eighty-five years. For example, until 2002—when this aspect of the law was amended to prevent frustration for visitors to that year’s winter Olympics—Utah did not allow public bars but instead required the service of alcohol stronger than 3.2 beer to occur in “private clubs,” for which people had to become formal members. Today, Utah’s bars must include a sign by their entrance specifically saying, “This is a bar. 21+ only.”Footnote ⁹⁰ Until 2017, Utah restaurants that served drinks stronger than 3.2 beer were required to have a barrier—generally frosted glass, which was colorfully termed the “Zion Curtain”—around the bar to prevent children from seeing bartenders in the glorious action of preparing and pouring drinks.Footnote ⁹¹ But once again, if the restaurant only served 3.2 beer, the need for a Zion Curtain as well as these other restrictions did not apply.

We outline Utah’s post-prohibition liquor law in such detail, not because it is so unique—many states have quirky laws, though admittedly, Utah’s might be the quirkiest—but because many states likewise treated 3.2 beer differently than other alcoholic beverages. Aside from Utah, two of the most prominent, longstanding 3.2 beer states were Oklahoma and Kansas. When these states finally repealed their prohibitions (in 1949 and 1959, respectively), they both prohibited the return of the “open saloon.” Thus, liquor, wine, and full-strength beer could only be sold in packages from a licensed liquor store, and they could not be consumed in any place to which the public had access. But Kansas and Oklahoma liberally allowed “non-intoxicating” 3.2 beer to be purchased by the drink in bars or restaurants, as they had been since the 1930s. Only in 1984 did Oklahoma become the forty-ninth state to allow the sale of strong beer and liquor by the drink, and even then, only under local option. Kansas followed suit three years later when it repealed its prohibition of open saloons.Footnote ⁹² Thus, since 1987, citizens in all fifty states have had the ability (unless they lived in a dry municipality) to order something stronger than 3.2 beer in a bar.

With respect to the purchase of alcohol for off-premises consumption, several states have traditionally required that these to go through state-owned and operated stores. But most of these “monopoly” states allow grocery stores to carry lower proof options such as beer and sometimes wine. Just after Repeal, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, and Utah required all “intoxicating beverages” to be purchased at an exclusive liquor store; however, grocery and convenience stores were allowed to sell 3.2 beer, but nothing stronger.Footnote ⁹³ Iowa, for example, had only 122 licensed state liquor stores serving its 99 counties in 1936, but the state granted 3.2 beer licenses to many times this number of grocery and convenience stores.Footnote ⁹⁴ While Idaho, Iowa, and Montana began to allow the sale of stronger beer in grocery stores by the 1940s, the “nothing but 3.2 beer in grocery stores” policy remained in place for the duration in Colorado, Minnesota, and Utah.Footnote ⁹⁵ The same was true for both Kansas and Oklahoma after they repealed their prohibitions.

In fact, by 2015, Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, Oklahoma, and Utah were the last state-level holdouts maintaining important roles for 3.2 beer, and this was primarily through their disallowance of anything stronger than 3.2 beer sold in grocery and convenience stores. That fall, however, Oklahoma legislators began to discuss reforms that would allow grocery stores to carry strong beer. This would be a significant policy change for the state since 95 percent of all beer consumed in Oklahoma was 3.2 ABW. In fact, the state accounted for around half of all the specially-made 3.2 beer that was being imbibed nationwide.Footnote ⁹⁶ Even at this date, 1.8 percent of all beer brewed in the United States was the special 3.2 variety.Footnote ⁹⁷ If Oklahoma eliminated its 3.2 grocery store legal carve-out, would it remain economical for breweries to keep making special 3.2 versions for that shrinking market? Dozens of beer manufacturers were producing special 3.2 brews, particularly of macro varieties like Blue Moon, Coors, Miller, and Budweiser, but even some “crafty” breweries in 3.2 states like New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado and August Schell Brewing Company in New Ulm, Minnesota made 3.2 varieties of Fat Tire and Grain Belt.Footnote ⁹⁸ Fearing that 3.2 production may dry up should Oklahoma drop the product, lawmakers in the other four 3.2 states to begin discussing whether they should enact their own grocery-store-sales reforms.Footnote ⁹⁹

It will not be surprising to hear that liquor store owners vehemently opposed allowing grocery stores to sell options stronger than 3.2 beer, since this would create a plethora of new competitors for them. Interestingly, however, many craft brewers also expressed a desire to keep high-powered beer out of grocery stores. These small brewers worried that grocery and convenience stores would strongly prioritize well-known macro brews over the diverse selection of craft beers that specialty liquor stores had been offering.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ The beer drinking public, on the other hand, largely embraced the idea of being able to buy full-strength beer while getting gas or groceries.

In June of 2016, Colorado passed a bill that would remove the 3.2 ABW limit on grocery store beer sales effective January 1, 2019.Footnote ¹⁰¹ Five months later, Oklahoma voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure allowing grocery stores to begin selling full-strength beer on October 1, 2018.Footnote ¹⁰² In April 2017, Kansas approved a reform allowing grocery and convenience stores to sell beer up to 6 percent ABV beginning in April 2019. In response, Anheuser-Busch, after long championing its “pet” 3.2 beer, announced that it was going to cut back, and perhaps eliminate, its production of special 3.2 offerings with only the Utah and Minnesota markets remaining.Footnote ¹⁰³ MillerCoors followed with similar signals.

In response, Utah, the second largest 3.2 beer consumption state, accounting for around 30 percent of 3.2 beer sales in 2015—in fact 94 percent of all beer purchased in Utah in that year was 3.2 ABW—approved grocery store sales of beer that was up to 5 percent ABV on March 26, 2019. This law was slated to go into effect on November 1, 2019.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Steering into the curve, Anheuser-Busch held a widely publicized “funeral” for 3.2 beer on Halloween night 2019. A team of the company’s iconic Clydesdale horses carried a coffin full of 3.2 Budweiser through downtown Salt Lake City as ghoulish-looking pallbearers carried signs saying, “RIP 3.2 beer” and “Bud Heavy is Coming Nov. 1.”Footnote ¹⁰⁵

These actions now leave Minnesota as the last state with an active 3.2 beer law. Shoppers cannot purchase anything stronger than 3.2 beer in the state’s grocery stores, convenience stores, or other retailers. To buy full-strength beer, wine, or liquor, Minnesotans must visit an exclusive liquor store. The state also has plenty of restaurants licensed to sell nothing but 3.2 beer, and it has at least one final holdout “3.2 bar”—as of this writing, Minneapolis’s T-Shoppe bar is constrained by its license to offer only beer that is at or below 3.2 percent alcohol by weight.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ The pressure for reform is growing on Minnesota legislators, as most breweries have stopped production of special 3.2 varieties. Now, Minnesota’s grocery stores and 3.2-only licensed restaurants and bars can legally offer only light beers that happen to meet the 3.2 ABW (4 percent ABV) threshold, such as Heineken Silver, Modelo Oro, and Miller 64. It seems highly doubtful that the legal product known as “3.2 beer” will survive to see its centennial in April 2033.

To summarize our historical discussion of legal roles for 3.2 beer in the United States in the post-Prohibition era, Table 1 reports the dates when various 3.2 legal carve-outs were ended (or if they are still going as of this writing) in what are arguably the eight most prominent 3.2 beer states.

Table 1. Dates of ending of carve-outs in eight prominent 3.2 beer states Source: See text.

International Comparisons to 3.2 Beer’s Legal Roles in the United States

As shown above, over the last nine decades, 3.2 beer has taken on several important legal roles in the United States, whereby it existed in the legal code alongside stronger beer, wine, and liquor. In fact, several other nations have likewise instituted laws whereby low-alcohol beer—though not necessarily 3.2 ABW—has been (and continues to be) given specific legal roles pertaining to who, when, and where it can be purchased.

First, there are many international parallels to 3.2 beer’s role as the only alcohol whose sale was allowed in many US grocery and convenience stores. In fact, the state monopoly liquor store—being the only place where strong alcohol can be purchased—has long been a staple in many nations. Prior to 1850, these systems were generally established to assist with the collection of alcohol tax revenues, but more recently their main justification has been to promote public order and health.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ Importantly for our purposes, however, many nations have permitted the sale of low-alcohol beer outside of the state liquor store in places such as grocery stores and gas stations.

For example, since 1922, citizens in Norway have been required to visit the government’s “Vinmonopolet” to purchase beverages above 4.75 percent ABV (around 3.8 ABW), but beer below this threshold has been widely available in grocery and convenience stores.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ In Iceland, the “Vínbúðin” was the exclusive seller of beverages above 2.25 ABV from 1961 until 2022, when new legislation allowed breweries to begin selling directly to customers.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ But 2.25 percent beer could be purchased at many other Icelandic locations. Greenland and the Faroe Islands, both self-governing entities within Denmark, also have state-owned liquor stores (the “Brugseni” since 1963 and the “Rúsdrekkasøla Landsins” since 1992) selling beverages over 2.8 ABV, but weaker beer can be bought in grocery and convenience stores.Footnote ¹¹⁰

Finland’s “Alko” has regulated alcohol sales since 1932. Until 1968, Alko was the only place Fins could legally purchase alcoholic beverages, but after 1969, grocery stores were permitted to sell beer below 4.7 ABV.Footnote ¹¹¹ When Finland joined the EU in 1995, it had to amend its laws to permit other fermented beverages below 4.7 ABV —not just beer—to be sold in grocery stores, kiosks, and petrol stations.Footnote ¹¹² More recently, the percentage limit for alcohol sales outside the Alko was raised to 5.5 ABV in 2018 and to 8 ABV in 2024.Footnote ¹¹³

Sweden likewise established its “Systembolaget” in 1955, which maintained a monopoly on the sale of spirits, wine, and beer over 4.5 percent ABV (3.6 ABW). However, beer below this threshold was widely available at grocery and convenience stores.Footnote ¹¹⁴ During the 1960s and 1970s, increases in alcohol consumption across Sweden were strongly linked to the easy availability of 4.5 percent beer for those 18 and older.Footnote ¹¹⁵ Consequently, in 1977, the sale of beer above 3.5 ABV for off-premise consumption became restricted to state-run shops for those twenty and older. However, beer at or below 3.5 percent remained available in grocery stores to anyone over eighteen.Footnote ¹¹⁶ In this sense, Sweden’s nearly half-century old law of allowing eighteen-year-olds the ability to buy low alcohol beer for home consumption, while requiring patrons to be twenty to buy stronger beer at the Systembolaget, parallels those US states that allowed eighteen-year-olds access to 3.2 beer while maintaining twenty-one as the age to buy anything stronger. Of course, there are today many nations, particularly across Europe, that have different age requirements for beer of any ABV than they maintain for liquor. For example, Denmark, Belgium, and Germany today allow sixteen-year-olds to buy beer but have a higher age threshold to purchase high-proof liquor.

Another widespread international parallel to 3.2 beer’s availability in many US states pertains to Sunday sales. In fact, “blue laws” originated and spread throughout Europe during the sixteenth-century Protestant and Catholic Reformations, which emphasized Sunday as a day of rest and worship. Many of these rules continue today, though often in far weaker forms.Footnote ¹¹⁷ Most relevant to our study, there have been several cases where the sale of low-alcohol beer has been permitted on Sundays, even though stronger options were off the table. For example, while (as mentioned above) Iceland requires alcohol above 2.25 percent ABV to be purchased in its Vínbúðin stores, which are closed on Sundays, 2.25 percent beer can be purchased in grocery stores on Sundays since it is legally considered a non-intoxicating beverage.Footnote ¹¹⁸ Finland’s Alko is likewise closed on Sundays, but grocery stores are permitted to sell lower alcohol options, such as beer below 4.7 percent (up to 8 percent alcohol since 2024) on Sundays.Footnote ¹¹⁹ This wasn’t always the case. As late as the 1980s—and in some places until the mid-1990s—Finnish supermarkets had to be closed on Sundays, and smaller kiosks, although open, were not permitted to sell any alcohol. Beginning in the 1980s, some village shops in the countryside were granted special permits from the Ministry of Trade and Industry to open on Sundays during summer, and they were also allowed to sell beer to help support the bottom lines of local businesses and to further serve the nation’s burgeoning tourist industry.Footnote ¹²⁰

In Sweden, under a 1909 law (updated in 1939), Sunday blue laws closed all retail shops from lunchtime Saturday until Monday morning. The only exceptions were “milk stores,” which could remain open due to the lack of universal household refrigeration. Only in 1972 were these laws liberalized. Today, while the Systembolaget is closed on Sunday, Swedish supermarkets can sell alcohol up to 3.5 ABV.Footnote ¹²¹

The differential legal treatment of low alcohol beer versus stronger beer and liquor is not unique to Western Europe. For example, in 1923, Columbia increased taxes for all alcohol except beer that was less than 4 percent ABV. This “Law 88” was part of a broader government policy attacking chicha, an indigenous fermented beverage which is much stronger than that alcoholic threshold.Footnote ¹²² Likewise, throughout much of the twentieth century, the Mexican government favored beer over other alcoholic beverages such as pulque—a drink made from the fermented sap of the agave plant that is typically between 4 and 7 percent ABV—and distilled liquors. Specifically, beer was subjected to lower taxation, and it was also regulated differently. In 1930, after a meeting between twenty-four Mexican breweries, President Pascual Ortiz declared beer “a healthy and nutritious soft drink,” without making a similar declaration about pulque. In fact, beer frequently received exemptions from local prohibitions, while pulque and stronger alcoholic beverages were outlawed by them.Footnote ¹²³

While the legal roles that US states carved out for 3.2 beer to exist alongside the stronger stuff in the post-Prohibition era were colorful, they were not unique. Several nations have likewise imposed laws whereby low-alcohol beer is treated differently than stronger beer, wine, and liquor in terms of to who, when, and where it is available.