The dry years at the plant: The Arrow, soda, distilled water, and ice

1918 — 1933

The conversion, in the company's own products: The Prohibition course at Mishawaka is written in what the house sold instead of beer, and the record of it is unusually complete. From 1918 to 1933 the trade timeline lists cereal beverages — Arrow, K&S Special, the K&S Arrow Cereal Beverage, a K&S Bock Brew — root beer and root-beer syrup, K&S Grape, and a soft-drink and syrup line: Emral Julepy mint drink, Emral Mint Syrup, Julade orange drink and Julade Syrup. De Kever's account adds the plant's other dry trades: near-beer of less than .5% alcohol, soda pop, distilled water, and ice sales — the ice house among the plant's buildings earning its keep. In May 1920 the company introduced its nonalcoholic cereal beverage under the name The Arrow, with the slogan "It Always Hits the Spot" — a launch date and a slogan surviving in the city history is the measure of how seriously the house took the trade that replaced its beer.

The directory's evidence: The conversion is corroborated at the level of the street directory. The Mishawaka city directory of 1921 prints, above its list of soft-drink stands, the supply side: "Soft Drink Manufacturers — Kamm & Schellinger Co, N Center" — the brewery itself, entered in the dry year's directory as a manufacturer of soft drinks at its North Center plant, alongside Wm. Magrames & Co. under Soda Water. The same plant, the same company, a new classified heading: the directory is the conversion's paperwork.

Why this plant lived: Most American breweries of K&S's size died in the dry years; this one "muddled through," in De Kever's phrase, on nonalcoholic beverages, and the product record shows the mechanism — not one substitute but a shelf of them, cereal beverage, soda, syrups, grape, water, and ice, sold through the same trade the beer had used. The parallel across the river is the Brewing Association's soda-and-ice conversion, in South Bend's build; Mishawaka's house made the same turn on a larger plant and a longer product list. When beer came back in 1933, the company that resumed it was the same corporation, on the same ground, with its kettles intact — the survival is the fact the Repeal entry builds on, and it is documented at the plant level, not asserted as local pride.

Sources:

1. Tavern Trove, brewery record — the Prohibition products of 1918–1933: Arrow, K&S Special and the K&S cereal beverages and Bock Brew; root beer and root-beer syrup; K&S Grape; the Emral and Julade drink and syrup lines.
2. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History — near-beer under .5%, soda pop, distilled water and ice sales; The Arrow introduced May 1920, "It Always Hits the Spot"; Julade the orange drink and Emral the mint-julep beverage; the company "muddled through the 1920s and early 1930s by producing nonalcoholic beverages."
3. Polk's Mishawaka City Directory, 1921, read first-hand for the Bars & Nightclubs leg — "Soft Drink Manufacturers — Kamm & Schellinger Co, N Center"; Wm. Magrames & Co. under Soda Water.