(1706–1790), was one of the founding fathers of the United States, and was perhaps America’s first true genius, making numerous inventions such as the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove. When he began his printing business in 1725, the very first book he published included descriptions of three types of barley grown in the colonies: two-row, six-row, and winter barley, whose use the author, Francis Rawle, claimed was only good for brewing beer.

Although Franklin preferred wine, he drank beer, too. His correspondence while ambassador to France, for example, makes it clear that he enjoyed beer as well as wine, and he even brought back a brewing recipe for spruce beer. It’s likely that he would have enjoyed a pint at Philadelphia’s City Tavern in 1774, when newly arrived delegates to the Continental Congress met John and Samuel Adams for a pint. See philadelphia.

Or later, in 1787, at the India Queen Tavern, where a compromise to the U.S. Constitution was hammered out.

But his continuing connection to the beer community is through a famous quotation attributed to Franklin. The phrase “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy” can be found in numerous beer books and on countless T-shirts. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that he ever said it. In a 1779 letter to his friend, French economist Andre Morellet, Franklin 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.”