The Government Has Its Nose In My Beer
Sometimes there’s nothing so relaxing as sitting on your patio alone enjoying a beer, with only the backyard birds for company. And sometimes nothing beats a brew with a pal at your corner tavern. But in both cases, there’s an uninvited and invisible third party who can not be ignored. He’s the governor of your state and his fellow legislators - Alabama in my case. Their attitude toward beer drinkers like us and the stack of law books on their bookshelf has a lot more to do with enjoying your beer than the birds - or your buddies down at the corner. Seems strange “in the land of the free� in 21st Century America, doesn’t it?
I’m not a joiner, my last membership card said: "The Boy Scouts of America" and that was so long ago that the ACLU didn’t attempt to name our scoutmaster or word our sacred Boy Scout oath. But 60 years later, I found another organization that deserved my allegiance. “Free the Hops� it’s called. Our mission statement is typically American: get the government out of our lives especially when it come to relaxing with a brew.
Nowhere does the State display its warped attitude toward controlling our God-given appetites than when it comes to alcohol. It all traces back to the Alabama Alcoholic Beverages Control Act of 1937. Corrupt public officials and bluenoses were suffering from deep depression because prohibition was repealed. How were they going to make a living? Laws are necessary to politicians like the Pecan tree is to the squirrels in my backyard.
“Hey,� said one tearful, post-prohibition legislator who couldn’t pay his house note due to the loss of periodic fat checks from bootleggers. “Let’s limit ‘em to 6% alcohol in pint containers - won’t that punish ‘em?�
And so they did. Consequently, Alabama is only one of 4 states - mostly southern - that imposed a 6% limit on alcohol by volume and is the only state that limits beer containers to one pint - 16 ounces; not a restriction in freedom we Alabamians should be proud of. These measures are as archaic and paternalistic as the legislation of the 19th Century that prohibited “fire water� to Native Americans. Aside from philosophical considerations of freedom, the 6% limitation keeps premium high proof beers out of our thirsty state.
Most of my beer drinking friends, who have an appreciation for freedom, understand that nowhere does the State act more like Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, William the Conqueror, and Adolph Hitler than when it comes to beer and other alcoholic beverages. Regardless of what the historians say, I know that the authors of the Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta must not have been beer drinkers or they would have maintained a few freedoms regarding our favorite hop-flavored, golden, sparkling beverage. Oh yeah, we get to vote. They sneaked in stuff like that, but when it came to brew - they gave “we the people� few powers. (Although some constitutional jurists claim “the pursuit of happiness� keeps the long, blue nose of government out of our beer mugs. How can you be happy if the Gov. instead of the marketplace is running the show?)
What rational argument can the State of Alabama make that beer should have an alcoholic ceiling? Maybe, just maybe, there’d be a sliver of logic if they proved that beverages containing over 6% alcohol have some strange regional effect - OK for New Yorkers - maniacal for Alabamians since it causes us to stomp on our neighbors and push over their outhouses. But the State, itself, with a hypocritic sneer, operates a string of State liquor stores that sells you beverages with 90 and 100 proof alcohol. That’s like saying arsenic is deadly in large doses and only the State, like James Bond, is licensed to kill. Irrationality abounds. The grocery can sell beer (with that 6% ceiling) and all the wine you want, but not Sherry or Port. Why’s that? Because Sherry is 20 proof and the groceries’ beverages are capped at 19%. Only the State-owned liquor store has the moral and legal credentials to sell that kind of powerful snake-bite medicine. It’s kinda like the difference between over-the-counter and physician-prescribed drugs. The State as doctor, you see. So, you can’t buy a 32 ounce bottle of beer but you can buy a half gallon of Port wine at the State Liquor store - with a 20% alcohol by volume kick. You can buy it at a privately-owned retail outlet, too - but they must buy it from the state.
More than economics - the State’s usual motivation - is operating here. They already tax beer at the brewery and the retail outlet - and unlike a gasoline tax that at least provides roads for the taxpayers - we don’t even get a free beer or mug with a group picture of the legislature. When it comes to alcohol - the State acts like the town drunk
What right did the State have to monitor and control our thirst? Why not our appetite for supper? What was next? “Thou shalt not eat any steak, chop, loin, meat, roast, burger, or limb from the carcass of any multi-footed creature on planet earth.� And while they were striking a blow for my health, they could add additional language that would decree that state troopers could, without notice, join us at supper to assure compliance with their new health legislation.
And besides, don’t forget that - besides the restriction on alcohol content, the law allows no bottle, can, container, goat skin, bucket, pail, or barrel (those lawyers, ya know) larger than one pint - 16 ounces. Yes, you can buy twelve bottles, which my grandson can calculate to be 192!! ounces, but it’s hard to carry twelve bottles. So maybe that keeps us sober.
And another obstacle - 32 ounces of beer in TWO bottles - instead of one - has gotta up the price. Chalk up another score for our archaic, irrational, antique legislation.
You can buy 32 ounces of Pepsi - you can buy a 64-ounce package of Tide; you can buy a giant 24-pack of toilet paper. You could even wash out your mouth with 50 ounces of Listerine and not even the Alabama Alcoholic Beverages Control Act of 1937 commands you to spit it out. There’s nothing inherently evil about BIG. Why discriminate against our yeasty beverages?
Freethehops.org and beer drinking sympathizers have several constructive suggestions about this limitation - the most valuable of which is to “RAISE HELL�. No, not rudely. And please no Gallic riots in the streets. But it certainly helps to regularly point out to friends, co-workers, fellow beer drinkers and retailers the irrationality of the State’s attitude towards the civilized consumption of alcohol - one of the beverages “that maketh glad the heart of man� - so says the bible, unless they changed it with the Alabama Alcoholic Beverages Control Act of 1937.
Comments (16)
Manuel Lora
That's insane. Here in Iowa City, you cannot, at a bar, request drinks for other people who might be at the table. One glass/drink per ID or person. This supposedly will cut back on underage drinking or drunk drivers. If I want to get more than one drink, I have to get my friend to actually buy it there. Of course, nothing prevents me from buying 10 drinks "for me" and giving them to 10 people, even if they are adults and "legal."
In other news, there was some talk (I lost track of this story already) of enacting keg registration at the state level. This would allow the police to track where the kegs are, when they were filled, where they went, etc.
Published: May 4, 2006 10:52 AM
Andrew
Laws abound in every state controlling alcohol, to benefit the state and other special interests of course. Can anyone explain the rationale behind the South Carolina law requiring hard liquor to be dispensed from those little vending machine bottles?
Published: May 4, 2006 12:03 PM
Vince Daliessio
There is no state alcohol regulatory scheme worse than that of the People's Republic of Pennsylvania. The entire thing from top to bottom was designed by a committee comprised of Stalin, Mao, Marie Antoinette, and Gerard Swope, with Rexford Tugwell, Harry Hopkins, and the rest of the New Dealers thrown in. It only makes sense to the bureaucrats and beer distributors that benefit from it. Everyone else near a border goes out of state to New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Ohio, or NEW YORK (!?) to deal with a more reasonable regulatory regime.
The odd thing is, Pennsylvania has some of the most sensible (lightest) regulation of firearms in the country.
Published: May 4, 2006 12:38 PM
Manuel Lora
"The odd thing is, Pennsylvania has some of the most sensible (lightest) regulation of firearms in the country."
I guess you can't get a Colt, a bottle of Bacardi and a pack of smokes in the same store in PA. Terrible.
Published: May 4, 2006 12:59 PM
David Gross
Brew your own! That way you can have your beer your way, recycle bottles in the most optimum way, and avoid the federal excise tax to boot.
Home-brewing beer is the next American Revolution’s equivalent of the American colonists’ switch from tea to coffee in order to foil the British tax on tea, or of Gandhi’s campaign to encourage people to spin their own cloth and harvest their own salt rather than pay the British monopoly.
Published: May 4, 2006 1:12 PM
Dan L
Ohio still has state-run liquor stores. Anyone "nostalgic" for a Soviet experience in retail purchase should visit one. You go in to your stark utilitarian State store, scope the limited selections shown behind a plain glass case, fill out scrip in one line, wait for your order to be filled in another, and pay in another.
Several years back Florida repealed a useless law requiring beer cans to be sold only in even-sized ounces, which previously had nixed the ability to get a 25-oz Foster's "oil can."
And why does kind, beneficent government allow me to brew beer or bottle wine at home but not distill spirits? What makes one acceptable but the other an intolerable evil? If I were to try home distillation, modern-day revenuers would descend and cart me away in a Waco-minute.
Published: May 4, 2006 1:53 PM
Daniel
In Washington State, you can only get "hard liquor" from a government-"owned" liquor store. Customer service is what you expect: the employees consider almost a favor to be allowing you to buy alcohol using your hard earned money. I've been mocked once by one of these employees, a situation that could never survive in a free enterprise system. The options are very limited, only a state-approved list of beverages are sold.
Also, the store is never open when you really want it. For instance, if you are in a party at night and suddenly decide that you need more alcohol, you're out of luck. Now I'm expecting some waiting period just to be sure that you're not going to buy alcohol when you actualy want it... WHo knows, maybe you're angry and want to kill someone with the bottle?
Published: May 4, 2006 2:56 PM
RHU
Hi Austrian folks,
That's incredible!!!
Are you really talking about the USA?
It's hard to believe that such jurassic laws can even exist in any country, not to think in the USA - worldwide regarded as a place where freedom of the individuals is highly respected.
Even the most ingenuous Brazilian government bureaucrat couldn't imagine such irrational restrictions.
BTW, I drink no beer - not out of any kind of prejudice, just don't like the taste of alcoholic beverages, but using the same (ir)rationale they could, for instance, limit to - say - 3 ounces the maximum chocolate bar size, as some "state scientist" would warn against the health risks of consuming extra-sized bars, and so on...
It's time to set all these nonsense laws on fire, and let each one decide how much, and what, and when, to drink, as long as each one is responsible for the consequences and doesn't impair the other individuals' freedom.
Stop state intervention before it's too late !!!
With kindest regards,
RHU from Brazil.
Published: May 4, 2006 3:24 PM
liberty
Wow. I didn't know some states own their liquor stores. In NM the grocery store can sell any alcohol, but in some counties they can' sell on sundays.
Since its all at state and local levels, I do not think they are the worst or most unconstitutional laws we have. That doesn't make them logical or right, though.
Published: May 4, 2006 4:26 PM
Vince Daliessio
Pennsylvania has a double whammy in that liquor and wine are available only in the state-run "Wine And Spirits Shoppes" (how 1970's!), while beer can only be purchased from a beer distributor, who has been granted a geographic monopoly by the Commonwealth.
So in the above scenario, you would have to buy a Colt at a gun store, Bacardi at the State Store (if it isn't out of stock), smokes at a convenience store, and, if you wanted beer, a six-pack of Bud at a beer distributor.
Theoretically you could buy your Colt and your deck of Luckies at Wal*Mart, but I don't feel like getting into THAT argument here again...
Published: May 4, 2006 4:56 PM
rich
In Colorado blue laws extend to the vending of automobiles on Sunday. Car salesmen get a day off by prohibiting others from serving consumers on a chosen day and not losing market share.
Antiquated laws are not retired here nor made to stand continuing review here with sunshine requirements. Here is a well researched article on Colorado liquor control.
http://www.westword.com/Issues/2006-03-30/news/feature.html
Published: May 4, 2006 10:21 PM
Ryan Fuller
In Utah, the cap is 3.2% alcohol. We've also got State liquor stores for selling anything stronger. The state liquor stores are hidden whenever possible, placed behind larger buildings or in other out of the way places. It's also illegal to take your own alcohol to a restaurant or public place, so a cooler is fundamentally a tool for committing a crime. It is also illegal to buy alcohol by the drink; you need to buy a bottle at a time.
Alcohol regulations are stupid anywhere, but I think Utah takes the cake as far as extreme alcohol regulation goes. Then again, in a state where most people seem to think bringing back Prohibition would be a good idea, what else can be expected?
Published: May 5, 2006 5:00 AM
Vince Daliessio
I attended the Cripple Creek CO motorcycle rally a few years ago - not only are vehicle sales prohibited, but apparently the law requires the dealers present to display a sign on each bike saying something like "vehicle dealers are prohibited from even obliquely discussing anything even remotely resembling the price of this vehicle, under penalty of death", or something like that. I asked a custom bike shop owner if this was really the case - "come on, you're joking right?", and he replied that if anyone overheard him even talking about prices, and reported him to the state he would be jailed, fined, and his business license taken away! All for discussing the price of a pile of parts he purchased with his own money, and arranged in a certain way - those same parts, arranged in a slightly different way, were for sale in multiple locations around the midway - it must burn them up that the only difference between a pile of parts that is legal to sell on Sunday and one that isn't is the sweat of their brows...
Published: May 5, 2006 9:18 AM
Anonymous
For the not inconsiderable number of people reading this who are considering home brewing, may I suggest The Cat's Meow. You'll be wanting recipes. Many of these are duplicates of familiar styles.
Published: May 5, 2006 3:01 PM
operator
hahah... the state as pimp!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/01/30/wgerm30.xml
and as for alcohol regulations... it could be worse, you could be afflicted with something like the LCBO (Ontario's 'single payer' alcohol retailer).
Published: May 7, 2006 1:44 AM
eastouip
I moved from Illinois (where anything goes, at least 30 years ago) to Indiana. I remember the first sunny Sunday afternoon, I was going to wash my car and went to buy a 6 pack. Got to the liquor store; closed! Hmm, strange, went to the next one, Closed. Oh well, went to the grocery store, grabed some beer, went to the counter, and the clerk threatened to call the Police because it was illegal to buy beer on Sunday. Wow.
In Pennsylvania where my mom lives, she asked me to get beer for a family party. I had to go to the state owned beer distributor, and the smallest quantity he would sell was a case. Six packs were not allowed.
Fun times!
Published: March 29, 2008 11:33 PM