WHAT! NO BEER?

It's an election year, with the possible end of Prohibition in sight. Taxidermist Elmer J. Butts (Buster Keaton) goes to a "dry" rally, where he follows the beautiful Hortense (Phyllis Barry) and her bootlegger boyfriend Butch Lorado (John Miljan) into the meeting hall. The next day, barber Jimmy Potts (Jimmy Durante), driving a car covered in pro-booze stickers, convinces Elmer to vote wet. They go to the polls, causing confusion and wrecking the voting booths.

Jimmy tells Elmer his million-dollar idea: making their own beer for a thirsty public. Elmer wants to be rich, too, so he can marry Hortense – and he has $10,000 hidden in his stuffed animals—so he buys a derelict brewery. Elmer and his hired hands bottle as much brew as they can, having several mishaps with exploding bottles and foam piling up over their heads. The police raid the brewery, because repeal isn't official yet.

With Prohibition threatened, rival bootlegger Spike Moran (Edward Brophy) realizes that his operation is washed up. Butch Lorado is also worried. Spike and Butch meet to discuss their business interests. Butch vows to eliminate his competition.

At the brewery, Elmer resolves to make deliveries himself, and drives a beer truck up a hill. Butch's men decide to kill him on the street, but the barrels fall off the back of the truck and chase the gangsters away. Meanwhile, Butch declares himself the new partner in Elmer's brewery. Hortense slips Elmer a note about an imminent police raid. Elmer escapes in a barrel, grabs a blackboard, and drives away. He shows what he's written on the board to everyone on the street: "Free beer at the brewery." The factory is mobbed, and by the time the police arrive, there's no beer—and no evidence—foiling both the police and Butch.

Later, a senator speaks to Congress, telling the story of how gangsters were put out of business when a crowd stormed the brewery. Beer becomes legal. At Butts's Beer Garden, Elmer and Jimmy arrive in an open car. Jimmy offers free beer, and he and Elmer are mobbed again. Jimmy, holding a frosty brew aloft, addresses the camera: "It's your turn next, folks. It won't be long now!"

Elmer and Jimmy’s brewery is raided, but they outsmart both the police and the gangsters by giving away all the beer to the public. With beer becoming legal, the duo celebrates in their beer garden, mobbed by eager customers.

The ending wraps up the film’s farcical take on Prohibition by letting the public’s thirst for beer defeat both criminal and legal obstacles. The crowd’s raid on the brewery eliminates evidence and puts the gangsters out of business, symbolizing the social shift as Prohibition ends. Keaton and Durante’s characters, ever the accidental entrepreneurs, ride the wave of history with slapstick luck, closing the film on a note of celebration and chaotic optimism.