AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Tea is the beverage that we usually associate with the patriots who fought for independence from British rule. But as Andrea Shea of Boston member station WBUR reports, many of the Founding Fathers were brewing their own beer while fomenting revolution.
ANDREA SHEA, BYLINE: History buffs flock to downtown Boston so they can time travel back to the birth of the United States at Paul Revere's house, Old North Church and The Green Dragon Tavern. For Gary Gauger (ph) of San Diego, visiting the legendary haunt feels...
GARY GAUGER: Kind of like going into Disneyland for the first time.
SHEA: Gauger is active in the Sons of the American Revolution, an organization for people with direct lineage to freedom fighters. The original Green Dragon was destroyed in the 1800s. But Gauger says this rebuilt shrine to rebellion is still hallowed ground.
GAUGER: I have images of a roomful of boisterous people raising pewter goblets full of beer and getting some of those brash ideas off of the grog, you know?
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MALCOLM PURINTON: Debating all the ideas of the enlightenment, the ideas of what is freedom? What is democracy? What is the role of the government?
PURINTON: People just start rising up in arms, and they would plan this over beers at local taverns like The Green Dragon.
SHEA: Sitting at the bar, Purinton takes in the antique guns, tricorner (ph) hat and maps of early Boston on the tavern's brick walls. Paul Revere and Dr. Joseph Warren secretly organized revolt at The Green Dragon. So it's known as the headquarters of the Revolution.
PURINTON: This is where the Loyal Nine, the precursors to the Sons of Liberty, first met after the Stamp Act, when we start seeing that taxation without representation starting to happen.
SHEA: It is also where the Sons of Liberty orchestrated the Boston Tea Party in 1773. Throughout the colonial era, Purinton says taverns and beer were ubiquitous.
PURINTON: Everyone was making beer in their homes.
SHEA: They also drank imported beer, wine and rum until the patriots boycotted British imports.
PURINTON: Samuel Adams met here at The Green Dragon, and he even advocated, like, we need to stop bringing in any imported beer, any imported wine and start really focusing on our own October beer, our strong beer because that's something that we're making ourselves with our local barley being produced by John and Abigail Adams.
SHEA: According to Purinton, beer helped ferment a new American identity across the colonies. He says the governor of Virginia made a statement by serving his home brew to guests.
PURINTON: Patrick Kenny - we're talking, you know, give me liberty or give me death. He saw that this is good enough. This is our local Virginian beer.
SHEA: George Washington also brewed. When he took over the Continental Army in 1775, the general issued a command.
PURINTON: Washington made sure that every soldier would have a ration of at least two pints of spruce beer per day 'cause, I mean, it was nutritious. It was part of, you know, some of that liquid courage if you're on the battlefield.
SHEA: Feeling inspired, Purinton orders a pint of an appropriate beer.
PURINTON: Go with the Sam Adams.
UNIDENTIFIED BARTENDER: All right. The Boston Brick Red?
PURINTON: Yeah.
SHEA: As he takes a sip, Purinton imagines how beer influenced the Founding Fathers when they drafted the Declaration of Independence. This Fourth of July, he hopes Americans remember the patriots who came together 250 years ago and raised their pewter beer pots in a new country.
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SHEA: For NPR News, I'm Andrea Shea.
(SOUNDBITE OF AYANNA SONG, "GIRLFRIEND") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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