Jimmy Carter will have to go a long time before his reputation recovers from his four years in office, but along with beginning to deregulate the air travel, freight railroad, and trucking industries, he also deserves credit for triggering the revival of the American craft brewing tradition. This is from an article in The New Republic, published in 2010:
If you’re a fan of craft beer and microbreweries as opposed to say Bud Light or Coors, you should say a little thank you to Jimmy Carter. Carter could very well be the hero of International Beer Day.
To make a long story short, prohibition led to the dismantling of many small breweries around the nation. When prohibition was lifted, government tightly regulated the market, and small scale producers were essentially shut out of the beer market altogether. Regulations imposed at the time greatly benefited the large beer makers. In 1979, Carter deregulated the beer industry, opening back up to craft brewers. As the chart below illustrates, this had a really amazing effect on the beer industry:
H/T to The Whited Sepulchre for the link.
