Drinking beer won't get you on the hundred

by Mike Pomranz, Posted Oct 6th 2008 @ 4:55PM

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." - Benjamin Franklin.

...or maybe not. Last month, the Elevator Brewery & Draught House turned some heads after issuing a recall on T-shirts they sold bearing the above quote and a likeness of the man to which it's attributed, Ben Franklin. Turns out the accuracy of the quote has been in question for quite a few years, and after hearing a talk from brewing historian Bob Skilnik, Elevator's Dick Stevens was convinced the quote was flawed and offered to replace the historically inaccurate T-shirts.

Most of us probably have heard the quote at some point, and many of us have used it in our internal monologue for justifying an unwarranted trip to the pub. But Skilnik does a solid job laying out his logic for debunking the quote on his Beer In Food website.

In actuality, Franklin was talking about wine when he wrote, "Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards; there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy." Whoops! Time to toss those koozies and pick up a corkscrew. Or you could just make your own beverage decisions instead of deferring to the founding fathers.

[via Realbeer.com] [Photo Credit: wikipedia.org]

Filed Under: On the Blogs, Drink Recipes
Tags: beer, ben franklin, benjamin franklin, Bob Skilnik, Franklin, God loves us and wants us to be happy