Weird History Food is going back to the times of Elliott Ness with Breweries That Survived Prohibition. The 18th Amendment didn't do a whole lot in the way of making America sober up. It did, however, do a lot of damage to businesses across the country, mainly breweries and distilleries that were unable to keep going after their main products were made illegal. From 1920 to 1933, the federal government spent outrageous sums of money failing miserably at enforcing a law most people hated.