If you’re enjoying a craft beer right now, say a word of thanks to Jimmy Carter | Opinion
President Jimmy Carter was a born-again Christian and a Democrat, so it may be odd for me to remember him as the father of an important liberty for all Americans — the right to drink beer that is not made by one of a handful of giant beer conglomerates. But it is true.
Today with his death, you’ll be hearing about a Nobel Prize, peace between Egypt and Israel, the Panama Canal and the greatness of his post-presidency. You’ll hear about the near eradication of Guinea worm. You’ll hear less about stagflation and his defeat by Ronald Reagan who heralded a new birth of freedom and conservatism in America. But in an important way Carter got the ball rolling on something that still touches my life to this day.
Beer freedom.
Nearly 50 years after Prohibition ended, Jimmy Carter noticed that a thicket of federal laws and regulations still remained for what was once a cottage industry across the land: home brewing.
He encouraged a Democratic-controlled Congress to pass legislation in 1978 that legalized home brewing. At the time, there were fewer than 100 breweries in America, most of them making the same tasteless schlock. Today it is not uncommon to find big cities that have 100 breweries on their own.
Carter was not the only politician to push forward the cause of beer freedom, but his push is widely considered the impetus for great beers today. In 1976, Republican Gerald Ford signed into law a 20% tax cut for small commercial breweries. State by state, breweries were freed from local red tape, and starting in Washington state, pubs that brew their own beer were legalized, an idea we imported from England.
And America changed fast. Home hobbyists became entrepreneurs.
California’s Sierra Nevada Brewing Company was born in 1981. The precursor to Michigan’s Bell’s Brewery appeared on the scene in 1983. By 1985, in Reagan’s second term, the number of commercial breweries in the United States had doubled. In 1986, Louisiana’s Abita Brewing Company launched the same year the first brewery opened in famously booze-averse Utah.
The brewing economy boomed. Today microbrews are a $28 billion business with nearly 10,000 breweries across the country (1,100 in California alone), employing 190,000 people.
Like many things in Carter’s life, he connected everyday Americans to those who value the same things around the world. Last year in Kansas City, two breweries in the city received national recognition for their pilsners — both are made with ingredients from where you’d expect, here at home, but also with hops imported directly from Germany and the Czech Republic.
Beer deserves serious cultural respect, as it is among a handful of things that still connect us to the lives of the people who created civilization 6,000 years ago in Babylon.
Beer freedom is as old as our nation. The first brewery was founded in what became the United States in 1612. Before and long after that, many Americans brewed their own. George Washington has left us his recipe.
Beer regulation is nearly as old. The killjoys have been with us from the beginning. In 1789, one of the first things Congress did under the brand new Constitution was impose a beer duty of 8 cents a barrel — to protect beer production here from imports. Donald Trump would like that.
And all that came before the Germans even invented Oktoberfest.
My political beliefs began to take shape on my father’s knee watching news reports of Carter’s feckless efforts to free the hostages Iran took. But on his death, it isn’t anything bad I remember about Jimmy Carter, but rather his role in giving me the freedom to have this Fairy Nectar IPA in my hand right now. That’s a legacy he can be proud of.
This story was originally published December 29, 2024 at 4:35 PM with the headline "If you’re enjoying a craft beer right now, say a word of thanks to Jimmy Carter | Opinion."
