There is something undeniably American about the philosophy of imbibe a beer . It ’s the everyman ’s drink to be enjoyed during backyard celebrations , or baseball games , or while watch over moonlight landing , or simply as a reward for end up mowing the lawn . It ’s a drink ingrain in our national ethos , surpass around by intramural softball champions and Super Bowl winners alike . To hellhole with apple pie : beer is what make America gleam .
In honour of the Fourth , we ’ve compiled some of our favorite moments in American beer story . Swap them at your vacation BBQ . Pass them along to your favorite barkeeper . Shout them out while follow fireworks . Because knowledge is power , and as a man named Abraham Lincoln once suppose : " If given the verity , [ the people ] can be count upon to meet any national crisis . The heavy pointedness is to bring them the real facts – and beer . "
Native Americans were making beer long before European settlers arrived
archeologist have happen upon fragments of pottery that prove that ancientPueblos were brewing beer in New Mexicoas far back as the thirteenth C , more than 300 years before Spanish settlers get in in the field . The brewage was made using edible corn , alike to a rickety beer tribe in Arizona and Mexico made called tiswin . Thanksgiving , it seems , was much more fun than the old painting rent on .
America’s first public brewery opened in 1612 in New Amsterdam
Even though colonists in Virginia had been making beer for personal use for year , it was n’t untilAdrian Block and Hans Christiansen opened their doorsin New Amsterdam that a public brewery stood on North American soil , right at the southerly tip of Manhattan . As perhaps what you could call a pretty good omen , the first brewer ever give birth in the New World ( and supposedly the first non - Native American male take over in New Amsterdam ) was drive home right in the brewhouse . There ’s no disk on what eventually happen to the brewery , but most conceive it was price out of the neighborhood by a chain drugstore .
The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock because they were running out of beer
Anyone who has been through primary school has learned the narration of the Mayflower , and anyone who has picked up a story ledger since has learned that the actual events were jolly different than the kid version . One huge dispute ? The pilgrim themselves actually had plans to navigate south to Virginia after landing on Cape Cod , butwere forced to bring at Plymouth Rock as they were running out of vital supplies , chief among them being beer .
The founding fathers were big on beer in both their personal and professional lives
Does it really amount as a surprise that there was beer on the minds of the architect of the United States ? At a clip when drunkenness water was a high-risk proposition , brew was considered a good alternative to death by dysentery . George Washington insist his continental army be allow a dry quart of beer as part of their daily ration during the Revolutionary War ( and luckily for them , Congress correspond and upheld the request ) .
But even outside of troop support , George Washington was bang for both buy beer ( kind of ironically , it was often English porter ) and using homebrewing as a mean value of offer their households with beer . fit in to the Mount Vernon Historical Society , there wasa recipe written in his handwritingdiscovered on the last page of a notebook computer he kept .
Thomas Jefferson , always the showboat , plump even further with his veneration to homebrew . After retire from public lifetime to Monticello , he apace developed an interest in producing his own beer , powerful down to ridicule his own malted milk . Naturally , Scripture broadcast andhis brewage became so popular that the sitting regulator of Virginia and ride President James Madisonboth requested his recipes ( to which he respond , " No direction , Jose , " or something similar in his Jeffersonian wit ) .
tab62/Shutterstock
James Madison tried to make beer a federally official thing
depart it to ol’One - Upmanship James Madisonto endeavor to take the beer spotlight from the rest of the plant fathers ! Early during his first term in 1809 , he propose the creation of a national brewery to ensure the nation had a reliable supply of beer for the masses . He even proposed to have it overseen by an appointed Secretary of Beer who would pose on his cabinet . Of naturally , this may have less to do with his love for beer and more with the fact that he was sample to 1 ) protect the domesticated beer grocery store by undercutting imports with duty , and 2 ) make beer more democratic than whisky , which he found to be a vast retarding force on families and club in general . In any case , it did n’t matter : party - pooper Congress rejected his idea , denying it from ever require off .
The oldest bar in the country predates the actual country itself by over a century
Long before craft beer parallel bars were in vogue , or before we had really delved into the melodic theme that " hey , maybe the British are n’t so great , " someone in Rhode Island got the idea to open up a tavern . And that ’s why in 1673 , theWhite Horse Tavern in Newportopened its doors and became an active player in former American account . Colonial councilmen gathered here , charge up their beer- and spirit - fire lunch to the public treasury , while Hessianic mercenary ( or German soldiers pay to police the British colony ) drank nearby . And it was race by a pirate for while ! These days , the German soldier of fortune are long gone , but it does serve unhinged - good seafood and kick - ass local beer .
In the 1980s, a beer-drinking goat was elected mayor of a town in Texas
Perhaps as validation that mass are unforced to vote for anyone with a schtick , the small town of Lajitas , TX once elected a beer - slop goat as their Ithiel Town ’s drawing card in the former ' 80 . Henry Clay was famous for take a long - cervix bottle of Lone Star beer from tourists , upending it in his own mouth , and spitting the bottle to the ground when it was finished . He was catch as a house - yet - large-hearted leader by his people until he waskilled by his own Word in a heated act of green-eyed monster .
President Obama is the first to brew his own beer in the White House
Since George Washington never actually hold up there , and since every president in between was more a " bodega run " kind of guy , President Obama ’s homebrew program marks the first time a sitting president has made his own beer in the White House . Public interest in the brew has been vivid ever since he got a homebrew kit for the kitchen during his first twelvemonth in office … so much so that two attorney actually requested the recipes be made public under the Freedom of Information Act . And they won ! If you want to make your own sight of White House Honey Porter or Honey Ale , you’re able to come up them right here .
2015 was literally the biggest beer year for America, ever
You might ’ve guessed it , but this whole slyness beer matter has really been boom in the US of A. Beer is selling like proverbial hotcakes , if flapjack were something hoi polloi in reality bought and like . 2015 saw the first sentence that the telephone number of active breweriessurpassed their pre - Prohibition high-pitched mark . This might not sound too shocking until you consider it took over 142 days ( since 1873 ! ) to accomplish this , which is around the time Betty White was assume .
Replica of the Mayflower II in Plymouth, MA|Flickr/Jennifer Macauley
Portrait of James Madison by John Vanderlyn, 1816|The White House Historical Association/Wikimedia
EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images
