Beer Saves the World.

Imported Beer - The Ultimate Patriotic Sacrifice
According to Princeton University’s WordNet, ‘Patriotism’ means “Love of one’s country and willingness to sacrifice for it.” Considering the importance of beer to the American colonists, it is all the more impressive that this bunch of beer drinking radicals should make the ultimate patriotic sacrifice and forsake imported English Ale.

In the lead up to war, Samuel Adams encouraged his fellow patriots with a declaration:

It is hoped, that the Gentlemen of the Town will endeavor to bring our own OCTOBER BEER into Fashion again, by that most prevailing Motive, EXAMPLE, so that we may no longer be beholden to “Foreigners” for a “Credible Liquor,” which mayh (sic) be as successfully manufactured in this country.
(quote excerpted from G. Smith, Beer in America, p 88-89)

Various economic strategies by both sides, including sabotage, boycotts, blockades, non-importation and non-consumption measures, instigated the Revolution as well as helped the Americans to win it. Americans recognized that local production of goods would be at the heart of any winning economic strategy within the war. And thus, the Revolution kicked off an effective ‘Buy American’ campaign including beer as one of its most important items.

Our Founding Fathers Who Art in Taverns
As any experienced conventioneer or capable business person knows, real work is never accomplished in meetings. No, the true deal makers shake hands over a drink in the bar, well after the official meetings have adjourned.

And so it was with the Founding Fathers. After the Revolution had been won, the patriots faced the daunting task of chartering a country. A defining aspect of their new Constitution, one of the most influential political documents of the modern era, was hammered out over an evening of beer drinking. It was on June 30, 1787, at Philadelphia’s Indian Queen tavern, that the Constitution’s framers agreed on a legislative structure consisting of a House and a Senate, thereby addressing a controversial issue of equal representation for small and large states within the union.

Ale, Proper Drink for Americans
The Constitutional Convention having duly accomplished its task, it was some months later when the required 10 states ratified the Constitution, thereby making it binding. This process was itself arduous and lengthy and its completion gave great cause for celebration. Independence Day parades occurred throughout the land.

Reinforcing the theme of local self-reliance, a contingent of brewers lead by Luke Morris marched in Philadelphia’s July 4th parade, with a banner reading: Home brew’d Is Best. In New York, celebrations included a delegation of some twenty brewers, displaying the motto: Ale, proper drink for Americans.

Further, after the successful unification of the United States, and as the country’s first President should, George Washington set the tone for a continued “Buy American” policy. In a letter from Mount Vernon, on 29 January 1789, he wrote to the Marquis de Lafayette:

We have already been too long subject to British prejudices. I use no porter or cheese in my family, but such as is made in America: both these articles may now be purchased of excellent quality.
(Baron, Brewed in America, p. 114)

It Builds Schools & Creates Jobs
But beer’s important contributions in the early formation of America have equally important contemporary parallels. Beer employs the citizens and funds the government. According to a recent report by the Beer Institute, the direct and indirect economic output of beer-related businesses reached $162 billion in the year 2004.

The industry’s annual economic impact includes nearly 1.8 million jobs paying more than $54 billion in wages and more than $30 billion in federal, state, and local taxes. Between 2001 and 2004, the industry helped create more than 120,000 jobs. All of which is to say nothing of the significant benefits it provides for tens of millions of American workers just after punch-out time.

Brewing Independence
But the most important contribution the beer industry can make (and is, to a small degree) toward building a self-reliant America, is yet to be fully tapped.

It is another liquid, called oil, which shackles Americans today. America’s dependence on oil, especially foreign oil, has driven our country to war, and steered the Earth’s ecosystems headlong into collapse. The pointless deaths of tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians could have been avoided if it weren’t for this one all-embracing dependency.

As usual, beer can play a positive role in remedying this otherwise fatal addiction.

Like all modern industries, the beer industry relies on the unsustainable use of petroleum products. Production, transportation, packaging, and retailing all rely on oil consumption. Yet the brewing industry has a serious advantage in its ability to overcome this addiction. Good locally-produced beer is already available in every state of the union.

Local production reduces oil dependency most notably by limiting transportation requirements. Automobiles and light trucks account for 40 percent of U.S. oil use and contribute about as much to climate change as the entire Japanese economy—the world’s fourth-largest carbon emitter. The average food item in the U.S. today travels between 2,500 and 4,000 kilometers, about 25 percent farther than in 1980. Local brewing, using American grown barley and hops, can curtail this number considerably.

Drinking locally made beer also limits packaging, which is reliant on petroleum-based transportation as well. Americans consume more packaged drinks per capita than in any other country—about 350 aluminum cans per person per year, compared to 88 in Britain and 14 in France. Brewpubs, however, do most of their beer trade in high tech reusable containers called ‘pint glasses.’ Many also offer takeaway beer in reusable jugs called ‘growlers.’ Not only are these so-called ‘glasses’ and ‘growlers’ reusable, but they require less paper and cardboard packaging. Whereas the average six pack comes in a disposable cardboard carrier, growlers are carried away by what is known in the trade as a ‘handle.’ Reducing packaging has never been as easy as drinking at the local brewpub.

Plastic Is Drastic . . .
A recent development in the beer industry is a switch to plastic bottles. That’s a bad thing. Making 1 million tons of plastic bottles from virgin materials (petroleum and other fossil fuels) generates an estimated 732,000 tons of climate-altering greenhouse gases. (for more stats like these, visit the World Watch Institute.)

. . . But Beer Is Here
Surprise! Beer comes to the rescue yet again. The Akita Research Institute of Food and Brewing has successfully produced biodegradable plastic from beer residues. Not only can this replace petroleum-based plastics, but in Japan’s Akita Prefecture, where the Institute is located, most food waste has to be incinerated or discarded in landfills. So the new technology will also cut down on waste materials.

Get Thee to a Brewpubbery
Self-sufficiency helped win the American Revolution. It can do the same in our struggle to break free from our oil dependency. Supporting local breweries is a step in the right direction. Perhaps too, like the Patriots, drinking and debating in the local brewpub will inspire a radical new course for the future of America.

And so, fellow Beer Activists, go now to your local brewpub and join the Fermenting Revolution.