Today in History—February 1: How a Hobby Revived an Industry

With the stroke of a pen, U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter transformed America’s brewing industry.

On October 14, 1978, Carter signed HR 1337, a relatively innocuous (read: boring, unless you care about excise taxes on buses) transportation bill with an interesting amendment, No. 5354, as a rider: the legalization of homebrewing of beer and wine. The new law allowed adults to brew up to 100 gallons per person (or 200 gallons per household) for personal consumption annually, and it was tacked on to the transportation bill to avoid inviting extra attention and scrutiny.

But it wasn’t until this day in 1979 that the law officially went into effect. Then it supercharged the American craft beer revolution.

Homebrewing is mostly considered a hobby now, but long before the Industrial Revolution made mass-produced beer commonplace, it was the standard way to get a pint. Then, in the 1920s in the United States, Prohibition—and the decades of restrictive laws that followed—made homebrewing illegal. This meant that beer drinkers had to choose between bland, mass-produced beer and breaking the law.

Because of the lack of diversity in the legal American beer market, most American drinkers didn’t have access to the vast range of beer styles—stouts, sours, hoppy ales—available to the rest of the world. With homebrewing banned, those styles remained unknown to consumers who weren’t willing to take some risks.

By the 1960s the craft beer revolution had started bubbling in a push to provide alternatives to the uniform light lagers being pumped out by the mega-breweries that dominated the market. (Most of these beer-brewing lawbreakers were operating on such small scales that they didn’t attract the attention of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms for enforcement.)

By the time HR 1337 went into effect, the revolution had already established significant beachheads, mostly on the West Coast. (Coincidentally, that’s where Sen. Alan Cranston, one of the two sponsors of the bill’s amendment, resided.)

With homebrewing legalized, craft beer greatly expanded its territory. The American Homebrewers Association (AHA) formed at the end of 1978, brewing literature appeared, and beer festivals and competitions proliferated. A vibrant network sprung up to support the movement and a new generation of brewers.

Today, the AHA estimates that at least 90 percent of professional brewers got their start at home. Famous craft breweries launched by homebrewers include Bell’s Brewery (Michigan), Dogfish Head (Delaware), and New Belgium (Colorado).

Cheers to a law, a pen, and a little bit of yeast that changed the way America drinks!