Small Beer, Big History

This year, our country turns 250. And whether you’re firing up the grill this Fourth of July or just enjoying a long weekend, I want to share something that ties Model A Brewing to that anniversary in a way you might not expect. Yes, it involves beer. Stick with me here.

It turns out one of our Founding Fathers wrote down a beer recipe. In 1757, a 25-year-old colonel named George Washington was leading the Virginia militia during the French and Indian War, and in the military journal he carried around, tucked among his notes on officers and orders, he jotted down instructions titled “To Make Small Beer.” That notebook still exists today. It’s kept at the New York Public Library, and to mark the country’s 250th birthday, the library partnered with a brewery to actually bring Washington’s recipe back to life. As a brewer, I couldn’t resist reading it.

Let me tell you, it’s a trip. Washington’s recipe calls for a large sifter of bran and hops “to your taste,” boiled for three hours. Then you strain thirty gallons into a cooler, stir in three gallons of molasses while the beer is scalding hot, and let it cool “till it is little more than blood warm” before pitching in a quart of yeast. If the weather’s cold, he says, cover it with a blanket. Let it work a day, move it to the cask, and bottle it a week after you brewed it.

Reading that as a professional in 2025, I’ll be honest, a few things made me smile. Three gallons of molasses is a lot of sugar, and it would’ve made for a sweet, dark, almost syrupy brew, nothing like what we pour at our taproom. But molasses was what a soldier had on hand in the field, so you brewed with what you could get. And “little more than blood warm” is actually a pretty good description of pitching temperature, and the man was working without a thermometer and still landed in the ballpark. I’ve got a lot of expensive equipment Washington never dreamed of, but the fundamentals he was chasing are the same ones I chase every single week.

Here’s the part I find most interesting, though. What Washington made was “small beer,” a low-alcohol, everyday drink. Back then, the water wasn’t always safe, and the brewing process helped make small beer a more reliable thing to put in your cup. It wasn’t a treat for special occasions. It was the daily beverage of working people: servants, laborers, and, in that era, the enslaved men and women whose work is part of this history too. The strong stuff was reserved for those who could afford it. Small beer was the people’s drink.

And that’s the thread that runs all the way from 1757 to Tega Cay. Good beer, made locally, priced so regular folks can actually enjoy it. That idea is older than the country itself. When we opened Model A in December of 2020 and committed to serving quality craft beer at the most affordable price we could manage, we weren’t inventing anything new. We were joining a very old American tradition of the neighborhood brewer making something honest for the people right around him.

So this Fourth of July, as we celebrate 250 years, I’ll raise a glass to George Washington, not the general or the president, but the guy who scribbled a beer recipe in his notebook and covered his fermenter with a blanket to keep it warm. Turns out he was one of us.

All I can say is this: however you celebrate, spend a little of that holiday budget close to home. The local establishments in our community are carrying on something with real history behind it, and we’re grateful every time you walk through the door.

Until next time, cheers to $5 beers, and to 250 years!

By Brad O’Connor