Did Benjamin Franklin say, “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”?

One of the Founding Fathers of the United States is credited with praising the foamy drink. We have verified the correctness of this attribution.

Allegedly, Franklin’s quote can often be found on sites that collect aphorisms of famous people. Among them Unquote, "Pearls of Thought", Aphorism.ru, "Great words"and many others. It is also mentioned in more well-known sources - for example, in an article about beer in the Russian-language Wikipedia. Users of social networks also love to share it: dozens of mentions of the phrase can be found in "VKontakte", Facebook*, Instagram*, Twitter And LiveJournal.

Abroad, and (predictably) especially in the US, this saying is even more popular. Not surprisingly, it has already attracted the attention of local fact checkers. So, the researcher became interested in the origin of the quote Barry Popik, as well as portals The Quote Investigator And Snopes.

The authors of all three analyzes draw attention to the fact that in no authoritative source this phrase is presented as a statement by one of the authors of the US Declaration of Independence. Most likely, the quotation about beer is a revised excerpt from a letter that Franklin sent in the summer of 1779 to Abbot André Morella. The full text of this letter, written in French, is provided by The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, which presents a digital version of the politician’s 37-volume collected works. prepared researchers from Yale University.

Initially, the statement was formulated differently and, most importantly, was dedicated to a different drink - wine. The fragment from Franklin's letter that interests us in full sounds like this: “We are told about the transformation of water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee as a miracle. But this conversion, by the goodness of God, takes place every day before our eyes. Look at the rain that falls from the sky onto our vineyards and mixes with the grapes to turn into wine; constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy!”

How emphasizes The Quote Investigator, Franklin's original wine quote evolved into a viral beer quote. So, in 1963, in an American cookbook appeared this version: “Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.” A year later, The Cincinnati Enquirer made another change, presenting the quote as "wine is constant proof that God loves us and wants to see us happy." As early as 1986, The Chicago Sun-Times reviewed a cookbook in which God no longer just “wanted to see us happy,” but “wanted us to be happy.” And only ten years later, in one Pennsylvania newspaper, instead of wine in Franklin’s phrase, beer first appeared.

Thus, there is no reason to believe that Benjamin Franklin was the author of the quote about beer as evidence of God's love. In famous texts written by a politician, there is a very similar phrase about wine, which over the past few decades has significantly transformed and has become popular in a distorted version.

*Russian authorities think Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, is an extremist organization; its activities on Russian territory are prohibited.

Not true

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. The Quote Investigator. Beer/Wine Is Proof that God Loves Us and Wants Us To Be Happy
2. Snopes. Did Ben Franklin Say ‘Beer Is Proof that God Loves Us and Wants Us To Be Happy’?
3. Barry Popik. “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”
4. Is it true that beer contains estrogen?
5. Is it true that they tried to poison George Washington with tomatoes?