Billy Beer?

Note: This is another "draft" that I am cleaning out of my files. I originally wrote it back in November 2010

November, 2010
In 1977, a supplier of beer making equipment in Rochester, NY, solicited his congressman to legalize home brewing. The bill passed through the House and Senate without fanfare and was signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1979. Currently home brewing of beer is legal in 49 of the 50 states. Alabama has laws on the books that prohibit home brewing but they are rarely enforced.

Prohibition saw the closing of the country's earlier small breweries. When it was lifted, the beer industry was tightly regulated and dominated by swill-producing behemoths like Budweiser, Miller and Coors. When President Carter signed the new law to allow home brewing, he effectively deregulated the beer industry, which paved the way for the resurgence of microbreweries. American craft brewers proliferated following Carter's move, jumping from about 200 a decade later to more than 1,400 now.

Today more than 90 percent of small breweries are said to have roots in home brewing, proving how vital the bill was. So while Carter may have done little for the economy during the late '70s, he did wonders for the fruit, honey, and chocolate beers of today.

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One hundred years prior to Jimmy Carter being elected, American brewer Adolphus Busch traveled to what is now The Czech Republic. He visited a small town named Žatec . The area around the small town was well known as the very best producer of Saaz hops. He had visited the area to negotiate the purchase of said hops. He eventually did acquire his source of Saaz hops from the Dreher family who owned a large tract of land known as Mecholupy (pronounced Mitch a lobe pea).
Adolphus Busch had earlier began to brew a "lager" using rice and several other grains and then filtering it through beechwood chips. In the period immediately after the American Civil War, beer was only moderately popular throughout the United States and then primarily only with recent immigrants from Germanic and or Slavic Countries. Beer was highly perishable and only had a "shelf life" of only a week or so. Because of this, most beer was produced, distributed, and consumed locally.

In 1896 Aldolphus Busch began producing a beer by the name of Michelob (in honor of his source of Saaz hops). It was called " a draught beer for connoisseurs". In 1961, Anheuser-Busch produced a version of Michelob which allowed legal shipment of the beer across state lines. Bottled beer began to be shipped soon after, and the brand was introduced in cans in 1966. Bottled Michelob was originally sold in a uniquely-shaped bottle named the teardrop bottle because it resembled a water droplet. The bottle designers wanted a unique bottle that would be recognizable in dimly lit pubs.

Michelob quickly became the "premium" beer of choice. It joined Budweiser as a flagship beer of Anheuser Busch.

Several months ago, I watched the CBS Evening News and I saw where President Jimmy Carter had delivered a former prisoner from North Korea. I voted for Jimmy Carter back in 1976. I truly admire him. Ok, I admit he was not that great of a president. His four year term as president will go down as pretty abysmal except he did change the law to allow people to brew beer in their homes thus spawning craft brewing in America and that ain't such a bad thing.

Below is a breakdown of beer sales in America:

AB-InBev (Brazil)-------- 51.9%

Molson Coors (Canada)----11.3%

SAB Miller (England)------18.7%

Imports*------------------14.3%

Craft Beer------------------3.8%

To put it all in prespective American's consume 171 billion servings of beer annually.

The number one selling beer in the world is Budweiser. The number two selling beer in the world is Budweiser Light. They are both brewed by AB-InBev.

Thanks Jimmy

The Third