Beer Day

I was writing to my sister congratulating her on taking a mental health day with her family to relax on the coast just North of San Francisco.  I got the bright idea to check what special events they might be having in the Bay area during their visit and discovered on Google that August 5^th was lauded as International Beer Day; and that there were festivities all over the place.  In fact I discovered there was even a museum of beer in, of all places, Portugal.  That is when the facts collided with my experience.  “Wait a second, what about Oktoberfest?”  Having been stationed with the Army in Germany I was well familiar with the event that had been occurring in Munich since October 18^th 1810? 

   So I retraced my steps to find out just how this day became THE International Beer Day? As it turns out there are a host of categories to holiday’s out there to search.  First there’s the familiar National and Federal holidays, also called public holidays.  They come into being through the process where a congressional committee fashions a request after being recommended by (no kidding there is actually a position with a title), the Deputy Undersecretary of National Holidays in Washington, DC.  The recommendation goes to both houses of congress who vote and agree to make it a proclamation, and the President signs it into law; then Presto  Father’s day! 

Which, by the way, wasn’t an official holiday until President Richard Nixon signed the proclamation in 1972; so he did have a few good days after all. 

  Then there are a host of Celebrations and Observations that encompass regional, ethnic and religious interest, but the brass tacks of those are, the mail still gets delivered.

   Finally, the creation of an International day goes through the laborious efforts of the General Assembly of the UN. The suggested day of observation written up and then entered on to the General Assemby’s meeting agenda for discussion, then vote by the usual methods; which is to suggest there is no clear process.

  By-passing all of that nonsense, comes the more expeditious method used in 2007 by Jessee Avshalomov, Evan Hamilton, Aaron Araki and Richard Hernandez.  They created a webpage, convinced their local bar to celebrate August 5^th and had a good old time.  Since then they’ve hit over 300 celebrations for IBD.

Today, the brewing industry is a global business, consisting of several dominate multinational companies and many thousands of smaller producers ranging from brewpubs to regional breweries.  More than 133 billion liters (35 million gallons) are sold per year- producing total global revenues of $614 billion dollars (Beverage Information Group and Brewers Association of Japan) Now that’s something that merits celebration.