Beer Guys Radio | Craft Beer Podcast

A little history for you this week.  Ron Smith and Mary O. Boyle are with us today. Not only are they craft beer fans, they are the authors of “Atlanta Beer: A Heady History of Brewing in the South” as well as “Prohibition in Atlanta: Temperance, Tiger Kings and White Lightning.” Atlanta and the south have had a love/hate relationship with alcohol over the past 250 or so years.  From the Whitehall Tavern opening on the West End in 1835 (back when Atlanta was called Terminus), to the mayoral election of Moses Frumwalt (of the awesomely named "Free and Rowdy" party) over Jonathan Norcross (of the "Moral Party), the early years of the region were quite...interesting.  Then, with the Civil War, reconstruction, and the abolitionist movement, the region underwent many, many changes.  The opening of Atlantic Brewing in 1935 (it was located on the current site of the downtown Hilton) marked a turn in Atlanta's brewing history. After its closing in the 50s, Atlanta's only brewery was a branch