Happy Beer Day! It was on this date in 1933 that the Cullen–Harrison Act went into effect, legalizing (after what much have been a dreadful 13 years) the sale of beer for the first time since 1920 (it was only 4% beer, but, hey, beggars can’t be choosers). On that day, 1.5 million barrels of beer were consumed nationwide. Is that a lot? I don’t know. According to this page, in 2011 Americans consumed 6.3 billion gallons of beer. So, let’s see…. That would be about 17,260,274 gallons of beer per day. There are 31 gallons in a beer barrel, so that would be about 556,783 barrels a day. Roughly a third of what they drank back in 1933. Pretty impressive, especially when you consider that the US population was only about 125.6 million in 1933 and 311.7 million in 2011. If April 7th is Beer Day, then April 8th has got to be Hangover Day. But then, I generally celebrate both most every day.