Iceland's beer ban
A photograph from the Morgunblaðið archive from the first day that beer was sold at the state alcohol shop, ÁTVR, in 1989. Mbl.is/ Árni Sæberg
BBC Magazine has written a feature on the ban on beer in Iceland titled, "Why Iceland banned beer." Beer was banned in Iceland between 1915 and 1989 for numerous reasons.
One reason, suggested in the article, was that beer was especially out of favour - for political reasons. Iceland was engaged in a struggle for independence from Denmark at the time, and Icelanders strongly associated beer with Danish lifestyles.
"The Danes were drinking eight times as much alcohol per person on a yearly basis at the time," says historian Stefan Palsson, author of Beer: Around the World in 120 Pints. As a result, beer was "not the patriotic drink of choice".
