Small beer. Info on brewing in the United States, including the Civil War era:
https://eh.net/encyclopedia/a-concise-history-of-americas-brewing-industry/
From the article:
Table 1: Industry Production and per Capita Consumption, 1865-1915
Year | National Production (millions of barrels) | Per Capita Consumption (gallons) |
1865 | 3.7 | 3.4 |
1870 | 6.6 | 5.3 |
1875 | 9.5 | 6.6 |
1880 | 13.3 | 8.2 |
1885 | 19.2 | 10.5 |
1890 | 27.6 | 13.6 |
1895 | 33.6 | 15.0 |
1900 | 39.5 | 16.0 |
1905 | 49.5 | 18.3 |
1910 | 59.6 | 20.0 |
1915 | 59.8 | 18.7 |
Source: United States Brewers Association
, 1979 Brewers Almanac, Washington, DC: 12-13.
Between the Civil War and national prohibition, the production and consumption of beer greatly outpaced spirits. Though consumption levels of absolute alcohol had peaked in the early 1800s, temperance and prohibition forces grew increasingly vocal and active as the century wore on, and by the late 1800s, they constituted one of the best-organized political pressure groups of the day (Kerr, Chapter 5, 1985). Their efforts culminated in the ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment on January 29, 1919 that, along with the Volstead Act, made the production and distribution of any beverages with more than one-half of one percent alcohol illegal. While estimates of alcohol activity during Prohibition’s thirteen year reign — from 1920 to 1933 — are imprecise, beer consumption almost certainly fell, though spirit consumption may have remained constant or actually even increased slightly (Rorbaugh, Appendices).
Rorabaugh, 106-110: "Beer, like wine, was advocated as a substitute for distilled spirts. As early as 1788 Benjamin Rush had calculated that the best hope for his antispirits crusade was to persuade Americans who found wine too costly to drink beer, a beverage that could be brewed in America and that the masses could afford... Neither the manuals to instruct Americans in the art of brewing nor the encouragement of presidents Jefferson and Madison furthered the cause. In 1810, annual per capita consumption of beer was less than 1 gallon; today, it is more than 18 gallons. ... In Philadelphia, the nation's premier brewing center, beer was 'the common table drink of every family in easy circumstances.' It was also popular in New York, Albany, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati; indeed, the states of New York and Pennsylvania produced three-fourths of the nation's beer. ... In Cincinnati 18 cents would buy either a bottle of beer or more than a half gallon of whiskey. ... One reason that Milwaukee emerged as a brewing center was that it had relatively short summers. The, too, beer was so bulky, expensive to transport, and difficult to store that it needed a concentrated market [i.e. cities], and at the time most Americans lived on farms dispersed across the countryside. Finally, beer spoiled easily. ... Before 1840 [American brewers] employed an English method of brewing in which fermentation was produced by a yeast that floated on the top of a vat of barley malt. To the brewers' exasperation, this process did not work well in America. The yeast interacted with the air and produced a bitter brew that was ill-tasting, cloudy, and without sparkle. ... the difficulty was not solved until the 1840s, when German immigrants introduced a new kind of yeast that sank to the bottom of the vat and, hence, was not exposed to the air. This beer did not turn bitter. The Germans called their beer lager, because it was aged in a cool store room for several weeks. ... Its popularity continued to rise, especially after the Civil War, when the high taxes on spirits and
nostalgic memories of wartime Union Army lager beer rations stimulated its sales."
Rorabaugh, 176 argued: "It might also be noted that in the United States after 1840, as factory workers whose dead-end jobs discouraged both motivation and aspirations became more numerous, the consumption of beer increased."
As for modern-day beer consumption, we find the world trailing the Czech Republic:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_beer_consumption_per_capita
Supposedly the United States is 20th, followed by Finland at 21. This surprised me, since at other times I think Finns were something like the 9th... But it may have been something like "9th... in Europe" since they trail sixteen European nations, some of them post-1990s independent state? *shrugs*
Interesting to note that coffee and beer consumption increased during the Civil War, and then moved into society and public consumption more broadly, no?