In yesterday’s Atlantic, a reader took quite a bit of time to call out writer Erik Kain’s article from Balloon Juice about the rise of the microbrewing industry and its connection to Jimmy Carter. As you may remember, I posted a graph from that article about the enormous spike after Carter supposedly deregulated the beer industry. Well, an Atlantic reader definitely doesn’t see it that way. Not one bit.

While I have immense admiration for President Carter, and would love to see him get the credit he deserves for all sorts of things (and who knows; now that Obama has officially supplanted him as History’s Greatest Monster, maybe he will), but E. D. Kain’s claim that Carter “deregulated the beer industry” (in Kain’s words) is grossly inaccurate. What Carter did sign was HR 1337, which legalized homebrewing “for personal or family use, and not for sale”–’deregulating’ individual, not commercial, behavior. The legalization of homebrewing did contribute to the growth of the craft beer industry (according to Charlie Papazian, 90% of the pioneer craft brewers started out making homebrew), so President Carter certainly deserves credit for that…but it just as certainly isn’t “beer industry” deregulation.

IMO, the step that really touched off the craft beer explosion was the legalization of brewpubs in various states–WA and CA in 1982, OR in 1983, with others following shortly thereafter. This is consistent with the graph, which shows a leap in numbers from 1979 to 1989 (meaning the growth could have started at any point during that decade); according to the American Brewers Association, the low point was 1982, meaning the turnaround actually began in 1983 (not 1979). Also: of the 1500 breweries in existence today, 2/3 are or began as brewpubs.

OK, good point. Sort of. Except for the fact that, you know, homebrewing almost always leads to the best microbreweries, much as reader Tom Hilton notes above. I was set to write a lengthy counterargument about why Hilton wasn’t much brighter than a stick, but sadly, Erik Kain responded before I got to, and essentially hammers my point home.

In the pre-Carter days there was little or no access to home brewing supplies, very little knowledge base for do-it-yourselfers to draw from, and far less experimentation with home brewing, making it effectively impossible to gain entry to the beer market for non-corporate brewers. Carter’s deregulation essentially stripped away all these barriers to entry, making it possible for a number of people who would otherwise not have entered the market to do so. Did deregulation of brewpubs also help lead to the craft beer explosion? Certainly. But as your reader notes, 90% of craft beers began as home brews. Without Carter’s deregulation, the brewpubs themselves would never have taken off. 90% of the craft brews we now have would never have existed. Even if this didn’t allow home brewers to directly sell their beer in the wider market, it allowed them to gain the skills and information necessary to do so.

Wooo, yeah! Suck on that, Hilton! All in all, this is kind of a funny Internet argument, and even more interesting than most YOU’RE AN IDIOT! NUH-UH YOU ARE! that floats around, so I like seeing a lively debate about craft beer and presidents. And not ones that involve beer summits.

So what do you think? Did Carter spearhead the craft brewery movement, or was he just given special acknowledgment for being President during a time where microbreweries spiked in popularity?

The Atlantic — Jimmy Carter: Not the King of Beers?

UPDATE AFTER THE JUMP

UPDATE: John Fleury from over at DCist points us to an article from Alex Mitchell at Beer in Baltimore where Mr. Mitchell also doesn’t quite agree with Mr. Kain’s original posting. The Atlantic has also now posted his sentiments. The money quote:

To apply the term “deregulated the beer industry” to the bill legalizing homebrewing is a supreme insult to the many hard-working zealots in the craft brewing avocation and industry–many of whom I’m proud to call friends, some of whom I’m on a first-name basis with–who personally lobbied for and shepherded the passage of numerous state laws actually permitting both homebrewing and the establishment of the microbreweries and brewpubs that give us reason to drink good beer. It’s an insult to those who still have to jump through local and state hurdles, reasonable and no, to set up and operate a brewpub or microbrewery, or even to brew beer at home.

Well, huzzah. I think now we’re looking at a stone-cold debate about how craft brewing came to be. I don’t really believe that Mr. Kain meant to say that without Jimmy Carter, we’d be a bunch of bumbling fools still disappointed with our Miller High Lifes, but Mitchell has a point that a lot of the grunt work was certainly done in the background through lobbying efforts and the sheer manpower of burgeoning craft brew stars. This happens with almost any type of legislation–with the more time that goes by, the easier it gets to heap the praise (or, in many cases, the consternation) unto one person. Did Jimmy Carter play a role? Yes. Was he the only actor? No. Are we happy there’s craft beer and lots of it? Very. See everyone at the bar this evening? Fantastic.