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Who really said it

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

Not Benjamin Franklin’s words — he wrote it about wine, not beer Benjamin Franklin 1706–1790 · American statesman, scientist & Founding Father
Disputed Free to reuse

Franklin really did write a version of this line — but about wine, not beer. In a letter of about 1779 to the French cleric André Morellet he called good wine “a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.” According to Quote Investigator ↗, the familiar “beer” wording is a modern substitution that first surfaced around 1996 and is found nowhere in Franklin’s writings.

Last verified 8 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Disputed — copy with the correction

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy” Misattributed to Benjamin Franklin. He wrote it about WINE, not beer — a line from his c.1779 letter to the Abbé Morellet, first published in 1818. The "beer" wording is a 1990s substitution. · Verbatim: “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!”

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In context

Evoking the themes of happiness and gratitude. Theme: "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

What Franklin actually wrote

Genuine source
Letter to the Abbé (André) Morellet, c. 1779
Original language
French (“Preuve constante que Dieu nous aime…”)
First published
Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin (London, 1818), ed. William Temple Franklin
Popular wording
“Beer is proof…” — a word-swap first seen c. 1996

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! He praised wine, not beer

Franklin’s genuine passage, in the English translation printed alongside the French in his grandson’s 1818 Memoirs. Note the subject is wine — the word “beer” appears nowhere in it.

Quote Investigator: Beer/Wine Is Proof that God Loves Us

How we verified this

  • Quote Investigator ↗ finds the genuine line in Franklin’s c.1779 letter to the Abbé Morellet — about wine — first printed in the 1818 Memoirs, and dates the “beer” variant to a January 1996 Doylestown, Pennsylvania newspaper item.
  • The Franklin Institute ↗ lists the beer line among “7 Things Benjamin Franklin Never Said,” noting his wine reflection was reworded into the beer quotation over time.
Public domain

The genuine wine passage was written by Franklin around 1779 and first published in 1818 in his grandson’s Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin; that early-19th-century text and translation are long in the public domain. The specific “beer” wording, by contrast, is an unsourced modern invention with no original author of record.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

How a wine line became a beer meme

The quotation is real in spirit but wrong in a crucial word. Franklin praised wine; someone later swapped in beer, and the brewed-up version now dominates coasters, T-shirts and bar walls.

Benjamin Franklin misquote

Franklin never wrote about beer here. His genuine line, in a c.1779 letter to the Abbé Morellet, calls wine “a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy.” Quote Investigator ↗ could find no support for any beer version before the mid-1990s.

Anonymous (c. 1996) modern coinage

The earliest located beer instance is a January 1996 newspaper item in Doylestown, Pennsylvania about Tun Tavern, per Quote Investigator ↗ — more than two centuries after Franklin’s death, and produced simply by replacing “wine” with “beer.”

Franklin genuinely wrote the thought — about wine, in a letter to the Abbé Morellet published in 1818; the beloved “beer” wording is a modern substitution, as documented by Quote Investigator ↗.

Context

Why it caught on

Franklin’s wine remark is charming and quotable, and his reputation as a bon vivant made him the perfect magnet for a drinking toast. Swapping “wine” for “beer” localized the sentiment for American beer culture — and craft-beer marketing has kept it in circulation ever since.

Because the underlying line is authentically Franklin’s, the beer version is unusually sticky: fact-checkers have to explain not that the quote is wholly fake, but that a single, load-bearing word was changed.

He said it about wine. The beer is ours.

Read the full story

The genuine passage praises rain becoming wine in the vineyard as evidence of divine goodwill — a poetic conceit, not a literal endorsement of any one drink.

The letter to Morellet is undated in the 1818 Memoirs; it is conventionally placed during Franklin’s diplomatic years in France, around 1779.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Happiness Gratitude

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: Beer/Wine Is Proof that God Loves Usquoteinvestigator.com

The definitive tracing: genuine wine line to Morellet, published 1818; beer variant dated to c.1996.
7 Things Benjamin Franklin Never Saidfi.edu

The Franklin Institute confirms the beer quote is not his and explains the wine original.
Did Ben Franklin Say 'Beer Is Proof...'?snopes.com

Snopes fact-check on the beer misquote versus the real wine letter.
'Beer is proof that God loves us,' and other bogus Founders quotesthegospelcoalition.org

Historian's account of the misquote's spread and the wine original.
Benjamin Franklin, Beer, and fake quotessites.suffolk.edu

Suffolk University's Franklin project on the beer-quote myth.

The true author — but of the WINE line

About Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

1706–1790 · American statesman, scientist & Founding Father

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) was a printer, scientist, diplomat and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. During his years in France he wrote witty, affectionate letters to friends including the economist and cleric André Morellet — one of which contains his genuine, wine-centered remark that later mutated into the famous beer quotation.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source & provenance

Benjamin Franklin to the Abbé Morellet, c. 1779, in William Temple Franklin, ed., Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin (London, 1818). Provenance traced by Quote Investigator, “Beer/Wine Is Proof that God Loves Us and Wants Us To Be Happy” (24 June 2016).

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/beer-is-proof-that-god-loves-us-and-wants-us-to-be-happy/

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