The latest issue of BYO has a prohibition-era recipe from Vermont on page 42 for a 3.2 abv beer as follows:
5 gals water
3 lbs malt syrup with hops
1/4 lb hops (most likely Cluster)
2 lbs sugar
1 cake yeast
1 level tablespoon salt
Seems like more salt than found in most recipes.
A did a quick look at water profiles on BeerSmith and the location with the highest concentration I found was East Los Angeles. It had 84 ppm Sodium and 99 ppm Chloride.
I'm wondering if perhaps they needed that to balance their water or maybe since manual labor was more prevalent in that era, that extra salt was added to help those doing heavy outdoor work in the hot summer weather.
Comments please and I'd especially like to hear from some of the homebrewers from Vermont.