The old proverb holds that for want of a nail, the kingdom was lost. And yet, it seems that for want of beer, a colony was founded. The religious separatists known today as Pilgrims, who left England aboard the Mayflower in September 1620, endured cramped conditions and frightening storms as they waited out their journey across the Atlantic Ocean. As described in Susan Cheever’s Drinking in America: Our Secret History, one of the few sources of relief for this troubled lot was the daily rat...
