I have  a lot of old cookbooks and cooking magazines downloaded from Google Books and converted into text files on my computer, and when I search for “Corn Beer” I get exactly one result: The Southern Gardener and Receipt-Book, by Mrs. Mary L. Edgeworth. I like looking at the old recipes they used for beverages back in the day, and this one really makes me wonder what it tastes like.  Here’s the recipe:

Boil one pint of corn, until quite soft, in enough water to cover it well, and pour it into a jar. Add a quart of syrup or good molasses, a pint of sugar, a quart of dried apples, two ounces of pulverized ginger, a cup of solid yeast dissolved in a little warm water, and three gallons of water. Set it in a warm place in winter, and a cool place in summer. It will be fit for use in a day or two.

Whiskey is a liquor made from corn (as, for that matter, is ethanol), and this may be considered to be something of a first step in making the liquor, although you still need to distill it after this. This beer would certainly have a corny taste, probably helped by the dried apples, but, like walnut ketchup, this is a taste that has disappeared with time.

Source: Mrs. Mary L. Edgeworth, The Southern Gardener and Receipt-Book (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott & Co., 1860), 264.