Matt Wuerker For presidents, beer is great leveler

When Sgt. Dakota Meyer won a Medal of Honor in Afghanistan for saving the lives of 36 Afghan and U.S. servicemembers, he had one request — he wanted to have a beer with President Barack Obama. So the day before the awards ceremony, Meyer sat down with Obama on the White House patio and described his dangerous mission over a cold beer.

Beer has come to symbolize the unique connection between presidents and the people they serve. Presidents are charged with bridging divides and finding common ground with citizens from all ideologies and backgrounds. There’s no common denominator like beer.


Abraham Lincoln understood this well when he famously quipped, “If given the truth, [the people] can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts — and beer.”

As we celebrate Presidents Day, we realize that beer’s role in presidential politics extends all the way back to the beginnings of our nation. After the Revolutionary War, George Washington, a beer lover himself, established a “Buy American” policy — and set the tone with beer.

“I use no porter or cheese in my family,” Washington wrote, “but such as is made in America.”

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt took office, the country was mired in the Great Depression and locked in Prohibition. After his first Fireside Chat, Roosevelt suggested, “I think it’s time for beer” and immediately called on Congress to legalize it. Days later, beer was again legal.

FDR’s effort, which eventually led to the repeal of Prohibition, was, according to Jonathan Alter, “one of the least appreciated elements of how FDR changed the country’s psyche” during his first 100 days.

In presidential politics, both presidents and the public have used beer as a barometer of the American identity. In 1948, as Dwight D. Eisenhower began testing the political waters, he warned, during a speech in New York, that Americans were losing their identity.

“Some people wanted champagne and caviar,” Eisenhower said, “when they should have had beer and hot dogs.”

Just as Ike used beer as a measure of the average American voter, voters used beer to measure presidential candidates.

In the heated 2004 race between President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry, beer may have tipped the scales. When independent voters were asked which candidate they would rather share a beer with, 57 percent said Bush.

Beer has also proved crucial in helping presidents bridge the political divide.

You may think that a Republican president from the West would have trouble identifying with Democratic voters in the Northeast. But that wasn’t the case for Ronald Reagan when he stopped by a pub in working-class Dorchester, Mass., on a wintery day in 1983. Despite a recession, plummeting popularity and a room full of patrons who voted the same color as their collar, Reagan connected with bar patrons over a pint, fulfilling his role as the “Great Communicator.”

When trying to connect with voters, candidates don’t sip a martini. Beer represents America. The more than 2,000 breweries across this nation – from Brooklyn, N.Y., to Bend, Ore. – capture the essence of their hometowns in their beers and then send them off like aqueous ambassadors. When candidates sample a local brew, they are not just quaffing a beer — they’re imbibing an identity.

Beer is a unifier and equalizer. It transcends party and ideology, geography and class, and is enjoyed by young and old, male and female, Democrat and Republican. It leads to common ground in politics and life. When so much in the world pulls us apart, beer has been there to bring us together.

On Presidents Day, we see our leaders as statesmen whose work altered the course of our history. But we also see them another way – as people with similar hopes and concerns. People, above all, we can sit down and share a beer with.

Joe McClain is the president of The Beer Institute.