Snakebite Beer
Because people can be damned fools sometimes, that’s why.
To begin: when Ragnarok happened, the town of Monroe was in a somewhat better position than most of the rest of Wisconsin, for exactly two reasons: cheese, and beer. The Blumer Brewery had ample supplies of both, thanks to brewery owner and local cheese magnate Carl Marty. Enough of both, in fact, to feed both the town and the area through the first crises; the good citizens of Monroe might have got pretty sick of cheese over the next few years, but the beer still helped with that.