[3] In 1865 it created a commission to travel to Europe to "obtain full and accurate information of the Excise Laws of Europe appertaining to malt liquors"; the findings of the commission enabled the brewers to help determine U.S. taxation policy by showing that low rates of taxation encouraged consumption and brought in more revenue.
The USBA got along well with top officials of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, who often attended its conventions, and saw its relationship with the government as one of reciprocal duties and obligations.
The resolution stated: “we will use all means to stay the progress of this fanatical party, and to secure our individual rights as citizens, and that we will sustain no candidate, of whatever party, in any election, who is any way disposed towards the total abstinence cause.”[5] In 1898, to help fund the Spanish–American War, Congress finally raised the tax on beer by $1 a barrel; once again, a lobbying campaign was successful, and in 1902 the increase was abolished.
The USBA concentrated on lightening curbs on barley use, avoiding cooperation with the distilled-liquor industry, which it saw as its rival and the main cause of the Prohibition movement.
Within the year the U.S. Congress had adopted the resolution for the Eighteenth Amendment, and Prohibition took effect nationwide in 1920; the 57th convention was not until September 27, 1933, in Chicago.
[8] After his resignation in 1925 (in protest against negotiations with the Anti-Saloon League), Jacob Ruppert became president, succeeded in 1941 by Rudy Schaefer (owner of Schaefer Beer) and then by Herbert J. Charles, under whose presidency, in 1944, the USBA merged with the United Brewers Industrial Foundation to create the United States Brewers Foundation.