A New Deal on Beer

Friday is the 90th anniversary of one of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s most unequivocally positive economic policies: the relegalization of beer.

The economy was at the lowest point of the Great Depression when FDR pushed Congress to change the legal definition of “intoxicating” beverages to allow the sale of beer up to 3.2% alcohol by weight (4% by volume) despite the 1920 Prohibition Act. Proponents claimed this would create jobs along the beer supply chain that were vital, given that a quarter of the workforce was unemployed.