The one good thing Jimmy Carter ever did
was to sign Senate Amendment 3534.
From
Reason Magazine:
Draft Dodgers
For DIY brewers, Prohibition lasted until 1978. But once unleashed, they revolutionized the industry.
For connoisseurs of Budweiser, the 1970s were a pale golden age. In every supermarket across the land, the King of Beers maintained its status as the grocery world�s most superfluous monarch, reigning over just a handful of domestic taste-alikes and one or two upstart imports. The American public had decided it liked its beer cheap, bland, and less filling, and the industry�which, after decades of consolidation, consisted of a mere 44 breweries in 1979�was happy to oblige. Consumers with a thirst for something tastier, or at least different, had few options. Things were so bad, in fact, that Coors, distributed in just 11 Western states, was considered such a rare delicacy in other parts of the country that bootlegged cases went for three times their retail price in New Jersey and Tennessee. Was it any wonder that the nation was feeling weak and watered down?
Then Jimmy Carter took pity on our wretched souls. In 1978 he signed Senate Amendment 3534, a portion of which gave each household permission to produce up to 200 gallons of tax-exempt beer each year.
Three decades later, the U.S. boasts 1,463 breweries, including 975 brewpubs. Bud Light and its analogs still dominate the market, but even your corner market may have at least a few selections to tempt the palate of Joe Microbrew: summer ales, double bocks, black lagers, maybe even a honey orange wheat ale. If you�re looking for a textbook example of how government can stifle innovation and discourage productive activity, even when operating in Regulatory Lite mode, the story of home brewing in America should hit the spot.
In colonial times, home-brew was as much a part of American life as burning witches or shooting Redcoats. George Washington had a brew house in his backyard. Thomas Jefferson gave beer-making seminars to friends at Monticello. By 1872, however, there were 3,421 commercial breweries in America, or roughly 17 times as many per capita as there are now, and home brewing was a less necessary endeavor.
Now we need to get the ability to distill legally - Europeans, Australia and New Zealand have this. Doesn't have to be 200 gallons -- 20 would be more than enough. Distilled Mead is glorious stuff...
Posted by DaveH at February 24, 2009 6:06 PM