[Lee Stewart]

Another soda pop, another pharmacist inventor. In this case, it was Philadelphia's Charles E. Hires. While on his honeymoon in 1875, Hires was served a 'root tea' he liked so much that when he got back home, he set to work replicating the taste experience. By the next year, he was selling root tea packets, which people could take home to brew their own drinks. By 1884, Hires decided people would buy more of the stuff if they didn't have to make it themselves. He'd also decided to take the suggestion of a friend who said the working class would like it more if he called his root concoction a beer rather than a tea.