Retro Beer - Harvard Ale, Beer, Porter T-Shirt

Originally Consumers' Brewing Company, Harvard Brewing Company was formed in 1898 in Lowell Massachusetts. The passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, declaring the sale of alcoholic drinks to be illegal, sent the brewery scurrying to recast itself as a viable business. The name changed to the Harvard Company, the brewery began offering non-intoxicating beverages such as root beer, ginger ale, grape juice and "near-beer." After prohibition the company thrived until anti-German sentiment led to federal takeover of the company which was ultimately sold to Hampden Brewing in 1956.