(Hop)py Birthday to you! Celebrate former President Jimmy Carter's 99th with a craft beer
At Twain’s Brewpub & Billiards in Decatur, Ga., Ethan Wurtzel proudly displays a photo of former President Jimmy Carter visiting his family’s bar.
Like many beer enthusiasts – but not many in the general public – Wurtzel knows the role Carter played in fostering the craft brewing phenomenon.
In 1978, Carter signed legislation federally legalizing home brewing. At the time, Americans sipped one dominant style of beer, a light lager, sold by big breweries such as Coors and Anheuser-Busch. But after home brewers were able to show the appeal of hoppy IPAs, malty stouts and citrusy wheat ales, that eventually led to a boom in small breweries.
Today, there are more than 9,000 small and independent craft breweries.
“You could trace that revolution back to Carter,” said Bob Pease, who heads the Brewers Association, a national trade organization.
But because the movement took off long after Carter left office, he didn’t get political credit for it, said biographer Jonathan Alter.
“This is just one example of many where Carter’s presidency has been badly underestimated,” Alter said. People tend to remember the Iran hostage crisis, inflation and high interest rates, he said, “and they don’t know about a whole string of major and minor accomplishments that made the country better.”
While it’s too late for Carter to get a political boost, it’s not too late for beer lovers to raise a glass on Oct. 1, Carter’s 99th birthday.
“It would be 100% appropriate to toast (his birthday) with a craft beer,” said grandson Jason Carter. “I think he would be surprised at how far it has gone.”
The fact that Carter is a hero to many in the craft brewing and home brewing community might be surprising to those who, incorrectly, view the former president −a devout Christian revered for his humanitarian work − as a teetotaler. Carter drank, though he was very disapproving of drinking to excess, in part because of the toll alcohol took on his family, according to Alter. He also didn’t serve hard liquor at some social events at the White House as a cost-savings measure. It was his brother Billy, who battled alcoholism, who is remembered for the short-lived Billy Beer he promoted.
And the broad deregulatory efforts that characterized Carter’s administration – on airlines, trucking, rail and more − can get forgotten because Carter is viewed through today's political lens as a liberal while deregulation is seen as a conservative goal.
“I think that deregulation piece…the shrinking of the government in that way, is something that people kind of forget about him because of the current way that our partisan sort of politics plays out,” Jason Carter said.
While Carter was very pro-regulation when it came to the environment, health and safety issues, he brought from his days as a small businessman an understanding that not all regulations made sense, according to Alter.
The restrictions on home brewing, for example, had been left over from Prohibition.
A group of homebrewers in California pushed for a change, which was included in a bill that dealt with unrelated tax measures. The legislation allowed beer to be made for personal and family use without being subject to federal excise tax.
That was a milestone in the progress of alcohol production after Prohibition, according to the Library of Congress. Homebrewing is how most craft brewers learn their trade.
Now, for every $1 spent on beer in the U.S., 25% goes to a small and independent craft brewer, according to the Brewers Association.
The bill Carter signed, “opened it up for the little guy,” said Wurtzel, who serves a rotating selection of seasonal beers along with favorites such as the Haley’s Helles gold lager.
Homebrewers have occasionally saluted Carter in the annual competition run by the American Homebrewers Association. “Jimmy Carter’s Nut Brown Ale” and a porter called “Thank You Jimmy Carter” were among the thousands of entries in 2018.
An Arizona brewery that began as a hobby among friends sharing their experimental homebrews makes a peanut brittle flavored blonde ale called “Jimmy Carter’s Second Term.”
His grandson Jason said Carter is aware of the impact of the legislation he signed.
“His brother was much more famous for the beer,” Jason Carter said. “But my grandfather certainly is proud of the ingenuity of the American brewers.”
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why Jimmy Carter's birthday should be observed with a craft beer
