Anyone who attributes that quote to Franklin is full of hops.

Beer is proof God loves us and wants us to be happy.

That quote —attributed to Ben Franklin— can be seen on the bathroom wall at a well-known Washington D.C. beer bar, and on many other bathroom walls, tee-shirts, websites, and in articles referencing beer. The problem is ... Benjamin Franklin never wrote that.

What he did write, in a rambling letter, was this:

We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana, as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy!
— Benjamin Franklin
as quoted by Bob Skilnik: What Ben Franklin Didn't Say About Beer

Franklin was, in fact, praising ... wine.

In 2008,  the owner of the Elevator Draught Haus in Columbus, Ohio, attended a lecture by Bob Skilnik, and heard the truth. Without hesitation, the brewpub owner issued a recall —and refund— of every single tee shirt he had sold at his brewpub that had been imprinted with that erroneous attribution.

Now, you too, Mr. Bar Owner: whitewash that bathroom wall!

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Three additional sleuths who should receive acclaim for researching this are

• The Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary, which, in 2006, mentioned that it had found no corroboration of the beer-related quote.
• Mid-Atlantic Brewing News writers Alexander D. Mitchell IV and Phil Sides wrote an article debunking the quotation, in 2006.


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