PROHIBITION AND GRANDPA'S HOMEBREW

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PICTURED ABOVE: Pat Corcoran (standing left) with the Kottig Brothers; Al (standing center), Frank (standing right) and George (seated on a block of ice) enjoying a little "homebrew" at 2938 Golden Ave..

Prohibition, as it was referred to, was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933. This ban also included home brewed beer, which despite the law, most American’s were making during that period.

Francis Patrick (Pat) Corcoran would regularly make "home brew" in the basement of the Corcoran family home in Oakley, Ohio. Pat did the brewing and a lucky kid got to help cap the bottles. His daughter said, today’ s children will never know the sound of bad bottle blowing up in the middle of the night. Pat was apparently pretty good at it.

On Saturday nights, when the beer was ready, family and friends would gather to enjoy a glass or two or maybe even three. Even the priests from St. Mary’s would walk over to the Corcoran’s house to sample a taste. And on summer afternoons, the mailman and the garbage crew would take a break during their routes to stop by Pat’s to have a cold one.

According to his daughter, dad was Irish, completely and totally, and the beer that he made helped make life just a little bit better for everyone back in those days. 

- from a History of The Corcoran and Kottig Families; Written by Mary Frances Kanis I on the event of Cecilia Kottig Corcoran’s 80th Birthday Celebration, The Beaumont Inn, Harrodsburg, Kentucky, May 7, 1997