Comment: It’s Still 1970 Somewhere: How North Carolina’s Small Craft Breweries Hope to “Craft Freedom”  From Antiquated Statutes Friendly to Distributors and National Macrobreweries

18 Wake Forest J. Bus. & Intell. Prop. L. 340

Beer is an American pastime and has been for centuries. It impacted
the very beginning of America, as the Mayflower diverted from its
original path in part due to a shortage of beer. During the early
nineteenth-century, Americans spent most of the day with a drink in
hand—and the average colonist may have consumed three times as
much alcohol as the average modern American. In 2016, Americans
bought over $107.6 billion worth of beer, with “craft beer” accounting
for about $23.5 billion of that figure.