Hence, with the exceptions already adverted to, brewing relapsed into the primitive state in which we found it at the beginning of its Colonial career, again becoming a domestic industry wherever a lingering taste for malt beverages induced the people to set up the discarded kettles, and to brew their own beer, from time to time. In like manner, tavern-keepers recommenced brewing in order to supply those of their customers who still preserved a taste for beer; and the quantities thus brewed for home consumption, in the narrowest sense of the term, may not have been inconsiderable; but we have no way of determining, even approximately, how large this production was. Such beers were not, of course, of a very good quality; and this explains the well-authenticated fact that the few regular brewers who still continued to brew were overrun with orders from the tapsters. Of a certain Quaker brewer it is reported that, toward the end of the eighteenth century, he used to hold receptions in the old Rainbow Inn, in Beekman Street, New York, whither came his customers, with hat in hand, to pay their respects and solicit a supply of ale! During the war, when commercial intercourse with England was completely shut off, and the importation of merchandise from other countries hampered by many dangers, domestic brewing revived in a measure; but the unsettled state of affairs prevented anything like a complete resuscitation of the trade. From all we can learn it appears that the increased activity in this field of labor was confined to an effort to produce the quantities of malt liquors which before the war had been imported from England; but even this object was not, in all probability, fully accomplished, because other more pressing needs confronted the struggling people. For a short time after the re-establishment of peace, the slight impetus thus given to brewing derived an additional force from a pretty general movement in favor of malt liquors, based alike upon moral considerations and economic requirements. We refer to the movement begun by Dr. Benjamin Rush and carried forward by a strong organization for many years after its inauguration. It was during this period that many small breweries were erected in the towns along the Hudson in the State of New York, and in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, where the movement referred to originated, at once became the greatest brewing city in America, the brew-houses there exceeding in number and the quantity of manufactured beer, those of all the seaports of the United States. [Sidenote: PROGRESS UNDER DIFFICULTIES]