This is the first of what I intend to be a number of US-related postings. I am sure others are watching, as I am, the frenzy of executive activity currently being undertaken by President Biden. Comparisons are being made with FD Roosevelt. People seem relieved that unlike certain predecessors he doesn’t seem to have mixed up the “Pardon” and “Execution” piles on his desk.
But what is he going to do for American beer? Is he going to match the man who stands unrivalled on that score as the greatest US President of all time?
I refer, of course, to Jimmy Carter.
No, I haven’t succumbed to lockdown-influenced delusions. Let me explain.
The answer lies in law HR1337 of 1978, which sowed the seeds for a revolution that made American brewing the world leader that it is today. 1337 was actually a Federal Transportation Bill, but Senator Alan Cranston of California proposed an amendment that legalised home-brewing, and President Carter signed it into law. Technically speaking, home brewing had until then still been covered by Prohibition.
For those of us for whom “home brewing” brings to mind keeping a grim smile on your face as you pretend to like your slightly weird friend’s latest concoction which seems to have been made with offcuts from his beard, this may not be obvious. But America’s home brewers took up the challenge with enthusiasm. Some of them turned out to be very good at it. And these people drew on their experience to start breweries.
Carter’s legacy has since been challenged, as acknowledged in a 2010 article in “Atlantic” magazine, which argued that the state by state legalisation of brewpubs - beginning with Washington State and California in 1982, with Oregon following in 1983 - was also highly significant. For which supporters of Ronald Reagan would doubtless find some way of giving him credit.
But would it be too much, in the current spirit of American national healing and reconciliation, to end the argument and say that these were both great moments and one followed from the other?
I will leave the last word on this to Donald Trump, who stated in October 2018 that “I don’t drink beer. I’ve never had a beer. I’m not saying good or bad, some people like it. I just choose not to”. I always knew there was something not quite right about that man…
Having established that, what should you go for if you are looking to explore US beer? Two breweries are particular staples of mine. Firstly, Goose Island from Illinois. John Hall, who founded Goose Island, is one of the undisputed leading lights of US craft brewing (yes, they have now been bought by Anheuser-Busch, but it has not affected their beer). You will have seen their IPA in the supermarket. Which is excellent, but go online and see what else they have to offer. I would also recommend Founders from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Let me also share with you my ambition to visit, one day, the Hall Farmstead Brewery in Vermont. They are regularly named by the rating websites as no 1 in the world. But they don’t sell outside Vermont, let alone outside the US. One for the bucket list when lockdown is over.