Beer, Politics, and Paul Ryan

brandchannel proves that despite President Obama's beer summit (and today's Buds he bought at the Iowa State Fair), despite Hilary Clinton knocking back a Blue Moon (and a shot of Crown Royal!), and President Bush being a teetotaler, beer isn't non-partisan, that -- like the Irish-Americans who insist that you have choose Jameson or Bushmills depending on who you are, rather than how it tastes -- if you mention the wrong beer, you screwed up politically.

See, when Paul Ryan accepted Romney's announcement of him as his running mate, he said, "My veins run with cheese, bratwurst, and a little Spotted Cow, Leinie's, and some Miller." (You can hear it on the video at 1:58.) Mmmm, a Wisconsin native (5th generation, he said) who likes beer: not surprising! But everything means something, at least when it's presidential politics. Leinie's, of course, is Leinenkugel, the Wisconsin family brewery that was bought by...Miller back in the 1990s. So brandchannel lets us know that the Leinenkugel family is Republicans.

They also tell us that "...as an aging Wisconsin drinker, Ryan can be forgiven for including Miller." Because Miller is now SABMiller, part of the London-based world brewer...but then, they're also part of the MillerCoors joint venture (based in Chicago). So maybe what's more important is that Miller is still made in the big Milwaukee brewery. At least, that's probably what's important to the people who work there. (I hear the election is about jobs.)

But the big ho-ho is that Spotted Cow is made by New Glarus, and the Careys, who own New Glarus and are making a huge Wisconsin success out of it, are very much Obama Democrats, and opponents of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, who the Democrats tried to recall earlier this year. So it appears that Ryan is clueless, right?

Well...I'd say brandchannel is clueless, because beer doesn't really give a damn, and a good beer drinker shouldn't either. When it comes down to drinking it, and the beer's good, beer isn't partisan. If you can tell if a beer's liberal or conservative just by tasting it, you're -- well, I was about to say you're better than I am, but to be honest? You're crazy.

Let's keep politics out of beer, because as I've learned in 30 years of drinking non-mainstream beer, you can't tell anything about a brewer's politics from their hopping rates. Let's leave that to the pundity types, and keep politics out of beer. Just a suggestion.

Follow-up on beer tax relief ("the subsidy")

From the Seattle PI "Washington Beer Blog," this bit of support for the federal tax relief Joseph DiStefano was defaming (and misunderstanding) recently:

The estimated cost of the provision is about $44 million per year and less than $500 million over 10 years. A Harvard study of the Economic Impact of H.R. 4278 indicates that the bill would generate more than 2,700 new jobs over the first year to 18 months, followed by an average of 375 new jobs per year over the following 4 years. Each new job would cost less than $4,000 in foregone government revenue in 2010. According to the study, "Economic activity would increase by $10.91 per dollar lost in government revenue, making the bill an efficient use of government funds."

Sounds pretty damned good, doesn't it? And these are going concerns that are showing steady growth in a mature industry. Still some risk, but...that's damned near money in the bank. If the economy does double-dip, as fears are growing, maybe a different story, but it's going to be a different story for a lot of businesses, and why would you want high taxes on business in a recession anyway? Do this thing. And you, reader, tell your senators you'd like to see this happen.

Where the hell are we?

Quick post, because I'm really busy, but something has to be said, because we're getting hosed again. Today is a big day for the beverage alcohol industry on Capital Hill. The House subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy is holding a hearing on "Legal Issues Concerning State Alcohol Regulation," which is Congress-talk for "the three-tier system."

Where did it come from? According to Wine & Spirits Daily, "This sub-committee hearing was said to be ushered along by the National Beer Wholesalers Association, and is to focus on the state-based regulatory structure of the US alcohol beverage industry, in contrast to the more deregulated UK industry." But producers don't want the hearings because no one really knows what's going to be said or what's going to come out of it.

Here are the people who will be testifying (courtesy of Beer Business Daily):

Panel I - First, the politicians. Here is where the rhetoric is:
· Rep. Bobby L. Rush, 1st District, State of Illinois
· Rep. Mike Thompson, 1st District, State of California
· Rep. Steve Cohen, 9th District, State of Tennessee
· Rep. George Radanovich, 19th District, State of California -- a winemaker, so likely on the side of deregulation.
Panel II - the industry and regulators:
· Mr. James C. Ho, Solicitor General of Texas, Office of the Solicitor General, Austin, TX -- as SG, he's on the side of prosecuting and enforcing regulation.
· Ms. Nida Samona, Chairperson, Michigan Liquor Control Commission, Lansing, MI -- a Michigan regulator, likely will fall on the side of regulation.
· Mr. Stephen Hindy, Chairman and President, Brooklyn Brewery, Brooklyn, NY, brewer.
· Ms. Pamela S. Erickson, Chief Executive Officer, Public Action Management, Scottsdale, AZ -- former regulator and consultant.
· Professor Darren Bush, Associate Professor of Law, University of Houston Law Center, Houston, TX -- He went to school in Utah, and specializes in antitrust and regulation and deregulation in electricity markets. So naturally he's qualified to speak on alcohol.

So who's missing? You are. Once again, there are no representatives of We The Drinkers, no one to stand up and say, "Yo! Here's why all this is not fair to us! While you're debating what's good for the industry, and the 'three-tier system,' you always forget the fourth tier, the people who have to deal with this!"

And the same thing's going to happen next month in Harrisburg when the Great Beer Raids Hearing takes place. I ask you: who do you have to know to get a drink around here? Why are we relegated to the gallery and told to be respectfully silent? When's our chance?

Massachusetts: coming and going

I talked about the recent increase in booze taxation in Massachusetts recently (in the context of how a Massachusetts legislator voted for the tax hike and then got caught buying less-taxed, cheaper booze in New Hampshire). But this caught my eye this morning... Massachusetts put this tax in place to raise revenues during the recession, right? I mean, aside from the whole moral issue of raising taxes during a recession, that was the idea.

So how come they now want to ban alcohol advertising on public transit...which is a moneymaker for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority? The ban "could benefit about 25,000 children" who ride public transit. By what, not letting them look at booze ads unless they look out a window at all the beer billboards? Hypocrisy. Ludicrous. How about the definite benefit to those kids of subsidizing public transit by selling ads?

Beer at the White House: it's the glass, stupid

What the hell does it matter?

I'm sure you've all heard about the Race and Beer Summit to be held at the White House today: the President invited the Cambridge cop and the Harvard professor to hash things out over beers at the White House. If you don't know the details, Google it (and get a life, will you?).

And now there's a lot of silly-season nonsense about what beers are being served. They're not craft, they're not American-made, they're elitist, they're too common, they're stereotyped...

Has anyone noticed the calendar? It's that time of year when bullshit creeps onto the front page. It doesn't matter what beer it is: it's beer. Pete Brown nailed this last week, noting that this acknowledges that "beer is the most sociable drink in the world," then going on to say, quite correctly:

I don't give a damn whether he serves them Bud Light or Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA, Corona or Samuel Smith's Oatmeal Stout. In one sentence, he's said everything I tried to say in Three Sheets to the Wind, and said it with a gazillion times more impact.

Bingo. Which is why I have had nothing to say about this, about what beer I think they should serve (here's a thought: how about some beers the participants like to drink), and only decided to say this when I read this blather in the WSJ today (thanks to Sam K, who sent the link). Go read it; I'd quote from it, but everyone sounds so dopey I'd hate to slight someone by not exposing their ass.

Actually, I will quote White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, who was one of two people who made sense (the second was Harpoon prez Dan Kenary, who tried to get his beer in, failed, and gave up, noting "I think just showing up at the gate with a case of Harpoon would make them look at us funny."):

"As I understand it -- I have not heard this, I've read this, so I'll just repeat what I've read, that Professor Gates said he liked Red Stripe, and I believe Sergeant Crowley mentioned to the president that he liked Blue Moon. So we'll have the gamut covered tomorrow afternoon. I think we're still thinking, weather permitting, the picnic table out back. All right?"

Sounds good to me. Beer is at the White House. Again. That should have been enough. Crying that it's not your beer, or the right beer, or an American beer is silly.

But...August is only two days away. "Man bites dog," anyone?

Yuengling boycott? What?

My Google Alert on Yuengling has suddenly started spitting out pieces about Yuengling "illegally" busting the Teamsters out of their plant, and a bunch of folks saying "Man, I gotta stop drinking Yuengling!" Huh?

So I read the stuff, mostly coming out of a Mike Elk post on Huffington, and wow, that Dick Yuengling, he's huffing and puffing and blowing the union down! Elk claims Dick "said that if they didn't vote to kick the union out, he would close the plant, and ship the work to a non-union facility in the South." Which sounds like total bullshit to me right there: if he closes the Pottsville plant, they're no longer America's Oldest Brewery, and the facility they have in the "South" is the old Stroh brewery in Tampa, which is where Yuengling got unionized in the first place. There is no "ship it south" option for Yuengling; which is when I got my first inkling that Elk might be rabble-rousing.

I'm getting a lot more skeptical these days, so I looked deeper into this. The first thing I see is that according the AP story on the issue, the National Labor Relations Board "could find no evidence that management pressured employees to leave Philadelphia-based Local 830 of the Teamsters." The NLRB ruled for the brewery. So where's Elk get his "Yuengling had illegally busted their union" line? If the NLRB rules for the brewery, and the last appeal by the union is denied -- which it was -- then it's not illegal. And it's not like the workers are being oppressed. Yuengling pays 100% of their employees' health care, and brewery workers make $20 an hour. Not so bad.

Then I took another look at the story: it's from May of 2007. What da hell? This is a two year old story! Why is it suddenly coming up now?

Keep looking in Elk's piece...and you find that what Elk is really doing is trying to put pressure on Arlen Specter to vote for the Employee Free Choice Act. Boycotting Yuengling, the all-too-obvious hope is, will cause Dick Yuengling to cry uncle to Arlen. Wow. To paraphrase Bugs Bunny, if this guy thinks he's going to get Dick Yuengling to cry uncle, he don't know him very well, do he?

Look, I'm not a big fan of the EFCA because of the no-secret-ballot provision. I am not anti-union -- used to be, but no longer -- but I think the EFCA, as written, needs work. What I'm really not a fan of is using, manipulating union workers for political reasons. And suddenly stirring the shit two years after the fact (particularly when the "fact" ain't even in your favor) for political gain all too clearly shows that you never gave a rat's ass about the union workers in the first place.

This is stupidly transparent. Think for yourself -- don't just blindly follow what I'm saying, go look at this stuff yourself -- but my advice? Keep drinking Lager if you feel like it.

No, no comments on this one. Just because.

All this talk of taxes

There are a lot of proposals for beer tax increases in the air right now -- federal, state, and local; here in the U.S. and in Europe. The worldwide recession has not just affected people and private industries, it's -- gasp! -- cut government tax revenues. Luckily, governments are the one enterprise that can increase their revenues by simply taking more money from other people. Yay!

One of the ways they do that are by excise taxes, taxes imposed on particular products or services that the government picks, seemingly at random: tanning booth sessions, for instance, or tires. There is a sub-class of excise taxes, commonly referred to as "sin taxes," that purport to try to help people not partake in behavior or consumption that is thought to be bad for them, or, worse, immoral. These include, of course -- of course! -- beer taxes.

The current argument for increasing beer taxes goes like this:

• We need increased tax revenues to pay for all the wonderful government programs.
• Beer taxes haven't been raised in X years (admittedly, quite a while...and can you give me a good reason why they should have been?)
• We should raise beer taxes because that would serve the twin purposes of 1)raising revenue needed for wonderful government programs that benefit everyone; and 2)encourage people to drink less, because higher taxes mean people drink less.

Allow me to shoot some holes in this.

First, it's damned near immoral to raise taxes in a deep recession. At some point, especially with excise taxes, you're taking money away from people who don't have enough to give it to people who don't have enough (while stripping away enough to continue paying the wages of the government employees who administer the programs).

Second, if the government programs truly are wonderful and benefit everyone...grow (or borrow) a pair and tax everyone fairly (and progressively). Don't put it on the back of moderate drinkers like me whose only 'sin' is to enjoy a beer.

Finally... I'm already buying beer that costs more than 90% of the beer sold in this country. The beer I buy costs almost twice as much a case as the popular beers do. What purpose will increasing the cost of every beer sold serve when the people who buy the more expensive beers are already paying that much and more? Simple: it's about raising revenues, not moderating behavior. And at that point, sweetie, you should be talking income or sales tax, or I should be voting your thieving, lying ass out of office.

An increase in the beer tax will fall most heavily on more expensive beers. Craft beers. Imported beers. Specialty beers. The beers you probably drink, if you're reading this blog.

So why aren't you doing anything about it? E-mailing your representatives is easy as hell these days: go to Congress.org, put in your ZIP code, and you can hit your Senators, Congresscritter, and state reps with one easy shot. Do it. Tell them you do not want to see an increase in the beer tax. Tell them that you would rather see cuts in spending or fair, across-the-board tax increases before you'd want to see any kind of sin taxes or excise taxes. Tell them you don't mind paying your FAIR share of taxes, but that voting for unfair taxes will cost them your support.

Hell, start a petition at your local bar or beer store. Get freakin' militant. It's your money they're after. And don’t be one of those sniveling warts who join in their own punishment: “Oh, sure, I guess I can pay a nickel a six-pack more. I probably shouldn’t drink so much anyway.”

You pay enough already for the sin of working at your annoying job. You do NOT have to pay more to have a beer when that 8-hour shift in hell is over. Be a man, defend your beer from the pasty-faced safety Nazis and morality police who want to tax it right out of your hands. The price of beer freedom is eternal vigilance.

Letter on Beer Taxes

I saw a letter to the editor in the Inquirer a few days ago about increasing beer taxes. Here's what he said, in part: "In the interest of increasing state revenues, Gov. Rendell should substantially increase taxes on alcoholic beverages, especially beer. Most politicians are afraid to tackle this issue, because of the "macho man" ripple it may cause..."

I hate beer taxes (and liquor taxes, and wine taxes, and all such excise taxes that tax narrow groups based on consumption), especially when they lean on the whole "sin tax" thing, which this guy did: "...the state also would be helping to save lives." Really? The numbers are -- surprise! -- pretty damned vague on that, though they are pretty clear that to "save lives," beer taxes would have to go up by a lot more than the PA legislature is likely to raise them.

So I wrote a response, and they printed it today. Here's the conclusion, the real heart of the argument: "Push the state income or sales tax up half a percentage point, or cut spending, but don't balance your problematic budget on my beer-drinking back. It's not about being macho. It's about fairness, and not asking beer drinkers to pay your share."

Always nice to be heard.

Scientific Method: how not to do it right

My thanks to Stan H. for pointing me to this post on Tom Wark's Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog. Tom does a brilliant job pointing out the way anti-alcohol types do science: conclusions first, research second...and a poor second at that. But there are always researchers lined up, willing to take the bucks of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

I don't see anything I could add. Go read the post, and think -- think!! -- the next time you read about New Dry statistics and studies in the newspaper. They're coming out of "science" like this.

Interested and Available, Governor Paterson!

An open letter to New York Governor David Paterson --

Dear Governor Paterson,

I understand you have a job opening for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat. In light of some of the relatively unqualified people who have publicly expressed interest in the job, I'd like you to know that I am interested and I am available. I'm doing this booze-writing thing, but with the number of days off Senators get, and the number of aides you get to do the heavy lifting, I don't think it should interfere. It would certainly make it easier to write a new edition of New York Breweries, and require every library in the state to buy a copy.

I'm not just looking at petty perks, either, although unlimited access to that Senate Navy Bean Soup is a draw. I'd like to serve New York and the nation as The Senator From Beer. There are some excellent breweries in New York, and although you've given them the back of your hand lately with talk of putting the beer tax back up (after your sainted predecessor Gov. Pataki lowered it; you should inquire why), I'm sure once you appreciate the employment benefits from increased brewery business you'll be whistling another tune.

I realize it's not a new idea, what with Scoop Jackson having been the "Senator From Boeing," and I think Dick Gephardt was essentially the Representative from Anheuser-Busch, but I'd be more even-handed, and represent the interests of the entire industry. Even that Belgian outfit, you know, the big place up in Baldwinsville. Oh, and those Belgian guys in Cooperstown, too.

Before you dismiss my idea as not having enough to do with representing the people of New York, I'd remind you that Senator Clinton seemed pretty focused on the presidency from the start of her first campaign; the national media certainly seemed to think so, and she didn't disappoint them. She didn't even live in New York until she decided to run for the Senate. My wife's family goes way back in New York, and if Hillary claimed Pennsylvania solidarity based on a vacation cabin in Lake Wallenpaupack, I figure Uncle Johnny's place on Amity Lake, outside of Wellsville should count.

I have no interest in the presidency, either. I'd go so far as to say that if drafted, I will not run; if nominated, I will not accept; if elected, I will not serve. Sorry, but that's how it goes. I have my scruples. I refuse to run for office, because all that fund-raising you have to do compromises your ethics. I'll only accept an appointment.

But part of my appeal is that I'm not part of the paste-up new aristocracy that seems to think it has some kind of right to office. I'm not a Clinton, I'm not a Kennedy, and I'm not Ham Fish XVIII. I'm a Bryson, dammit, and we've never held any office, or expected anything handed to us because of something our father or mother or uncle did. Really, I think I have every bit as much right to serious consideration as the other "candidates."

And, lookie here, I have a blog. Which I understand you were asking about when you talked to Andy-boy Cuomo this weekend. I've been blogging for two years, and a lot of it's about taxes and policy. There's some serious thought for you.

Think about it, Governor. I could be your man in Washington. I mean, what the hell? Why not?

Sincerely,

Lew Bryson
Future Senator from New York

Why We Drink

I just got this comment on a previous post, and it struck me that the timing was appropriate. I was looking for something to write about at end of year, and this challenge begs a response. Read the comment first.

No offense to you, but I just do not understand why so many people have to be drunk in this country. It seems like if you are not a "drinker", then society looks down on you. Why?

I am 35 years old, never drank and have no desire to. I live in Maryland, a state that denies anyone to smoke in public, even considering a ban on smoking in your own home yet you can drink til the cows come home. I was at a restaurant where the manager received a complaint about a smoker standing outside the entry so he called the police and they made the person leave the property. Yet during the same visit to this place [Fuddruckers in Columbia], they sell beer to anyone who has the money. There are open containers of beer on pretty much every table in the place on a weekday afternoon. This drinker [aka: loser], he got up to go to the bathroom, and while gone, two kids maybe 11 or 12 years old walked up and drank from that bottle of booze.

During my visit there, this same person drank 2 beers and looked like he had some before getting to the restaurant too. When I complained to the guy and the manager, everyone acted as if I was from another planet. Like nothing is wrong with everybody getting boozed up and stumbling around and allowing minors to have free access to illegal products.

It seems to me that america is seriously flawed in their values now, we have major issues going on currently including a "depression" hitting the economy, jobs being lost daily, shitty healthcare standards, and so much more. Yet our leaders are focused on blocking marriage to those that want it, are entitled to it, etc. I bet a guy could marry his keg of beer though if he wanted to!!!

In closing, I just don't get it. Want is the fascination with drinking.......is life that sad that everyone would rather be lost in a liquor fog that to face realty and deal with life 1-on-1.

This screed sums up a lot of what passes for anti-alcohol, New Dry "thought:" everyone who drinks is a drunk, the only reason people drink is to get blind drunk, children will all drink alcohol at every opportunity, alcohol is an evil that society must be protected from by the government and societal strictures, and life can be enjoyed without alcohol. As such, it deserves a response. "Anonymous," here's my look at "Why We Drink."


Why do we drink? We drink because our ancestors and forefathers drank, with traditions going back thousands of years. The first drinkers probably drank because of the mind-expanding effects of alcohol. Alcohol is not, as is commonly said, simply a depressant. It is a much more complex drug. When they drink too much, some people weep, some laugh, some fight, some become gregarious, and some fall asleep. But all have impaired judgment, impaired attention, slowed reflexes. Drinking too much can be dangerous; drinking too much, too often, can ruin your life.

Given the potential danger of alcohol, then, why do we drink? The traditions we put around alcohol, much like the rituals we put around sex, or eating, or religion, regulate our enjoyment...if we heed them. We drink with friends, we drink in groups, and we assign a stigma to drinking alone. Cultures with stronger versions of these fences around drinking generally have a healthier attitude towards drinking. Laws have been tried to substitute for these cultural strictures, generally without success, any more than a law against puppies would succeed (yet most Islamic cultures shun dogs as unclean, resulting in dogless cities without anti-dog laws...).

So we drink in moderation. This is the concept that seems to escape the New Drys like "Anonymous." To the Drys -- not non-drinkers, but the anti-drinkers -- any drinking is being drunk. To be honest, I don't understand "why so many people have to be drunk in this country" either. But I truly do not understand why some people equate moderate drinking with drunkenness. It is as if drinking is a binary switch: don't drink, and you're sober and upright; drink one beer and you're "a drunk" and a menace. Do they believe that everyone who drives floors it as soon as they get out of the driveway?

We drink for pleasure. Drinks taste good, once one has developed the taste for them. There is nothing non-alcoholic that tastes like a good beer; if there were, we'd drink it. There is nothing non-alcoholic that tastes like whisky, or gin, or wine of any quality. The non-drinker knows nothing of these tastes, the aromas. Alcohol carries aromas in spirits and wine and beer like the alcohol in perfume; there is nothing like it without the alcohol. The effects of yeasts and distillation and barrel-aging create aromas that are too delicate to survive "de-alcoholization."

We drink to bond. Drinking is best enjoyed as a social activity among friends, family, or lovers. Moderate alcohol use leads to "social lubrication," a disinhibition of shyness, a willingness to speak without the howling mania of drunkenness. A few beers, a couple hours of conversation, and you have a fine afternoon. You can have that without the beers, to be sure, but if it is pleasant with the beers...then why the antipathy? Some cultures even tend to drink weaker beers to prolong the golden period of 'lubrication.'

We drink because we can, not because we have to. I had two beers this afternoon with lunch. I'm going to go out and have another this evening. I won't be drunk, I had no intention to. I went out for a meal, and tonight I'm going out to spend some time with my wife on a holiday. I could do it without alcohol, and oftentimes I do. I don't really know of anyone who drinks with every meal, and I don't know where anti-drinkers got that idea. "You can have fun without drinking," is the constant refrain, and they're right. But you can drink without getting bust-up drunk, too. Drinking is optional, though if I'm at Oktoberfest, I'm having a beer. If I don't want a beer, I'm probably not going to go to the beer hall in the first place.

We drink despite the disapproval of non-drinkers. "Anonymous" feels left out, looked down on, because they don't drink. Yet drinkers are looked down on all the time, oppressed even: that's why there are "sin taxes" on booze, that's why there are laws that disallow drinking to all because of the actions of the few who overdo drinking. I don't know of any laws that punish non-drinkers, I don't look down on them...so long as they don't look down on me. "Anonymous" crosses that line. But you know? Despite that, I'll probably have a drink later. And more tomorrow, when we toast the New Year with family. And no one will be drunk, or "lost in a liquor fog."

We drink because we like it. Those who choose not to drink do so for their own reasons. If a person is over-served, and becomes an annoyance -- to a majority, not one whiny teetotaler -- then sanctions should be imposed: cut off, sent home, shaming. But if a person is simply enjoying a beer...where exactly is the harm? There is none. Indeed, there is a benefit. Booze means jobs: production, transport, retail, advertising, sales, marketing...even writing. Booze means taxes (unfortunately). Booze means places to go for fun, because sales keep restaurants afloat. Towns in the South that have been dry for decades are turning to booze because restaurants don't want to be in dry towns. No one forces anyone to drink, but why do some people get to force others not to?

That is why we drink. I doubt this will clear anything up for "Anonymous." But I will sign my name to it.

-- Lew Bryson 12/31/08

The Session #22 -- Prohibition and Repeal

It's The Session, beer blogging on a common topic, and this month it falls, with serendipitous beauty, on the 75th anniversary of the passage of the 21st Amendment: Repeal. If only this were Session #21! We've been asked to reflect on "What does the repeal of Prohibition mean to you? How will you celebrate your right to drink beer?" See all the links soon here at the 21st Amendment brewpub's blog.

21 Thoughts About Prohibition and Repeal.

1. Prohibition was about as likely to ultimately succeed as a law repealing gravity. People drink, and we've been enjoying alcohol for about seven thousand years or more. Note that longevity does not equal an invulnerable cultural position, but the stuff tastes good, too, and it makes you feel wonderful.

2. This did not stop people from attempting to make Prohibition work. Donkeys.

3. But note also: we had it coming to us. Prohibition happened because booze and the people who sold it were out of hand. Saloons were often dens of iniquity, drunken men did squander their paychecks and beat their wives and children, brewers and distillers were corrupt and fed graft money into a corrupt political system. We look back on saloon society and plentiful local breweries and a wide diversity of distillers (oh...for the days of rye distillers in Maryland and Pennsylvania), and we see things through amber-colored glasses, a beautiful Golden Age of Drinking. Well...there were some pretty cool things. But there were some pretty ugly things, too: see Gangs of New York.

4. There was something to that Golden Age, though. The heart sags to think of the local breweries and distilling traditions lost because the industry couldn't police itself. We had monastic breweries here in America, we had pot-stilled whiskey, we had flourishing wineries, and we had saloons that were opulent palaces of booze. All crushed, forcing us to start over from practically nil. Woe.

5. Enforcing Prohibition was a disaster. For every Eliot Ness, for every Mo Smith and Izzy Einstein (pictured here, sharing a legal drink after Repeal), there were a hundred corrupt enforcement agents who signed up for a chance to make bribe money, get away with shooting rivals, or to get inside information on raids for their gangster bosses. Enforcement was underfunded -- often on purpose -- and at times vicious: there was support among some Drys for not labeling wood alcohol as poison, or for simply poisoning all alcohol. And it never stopped more than a minuscule amount of the huge illegal trade in alcohol.

6. If all that sounds like The War On Drugs, the DEA, and Paraquat...well, draw your own conclusions.

7. But while you're drawing those conclusions, keep in mind the obvious. What the War On Drugs is today, Prohibition was yesterday; a doomed attempt to control an easily produced substance that a significant part of the population wanted to buy and consume, an attempt that built and hugely enriched a criminal organization, while making many otherwise law-abiding citizens criminals and scofflaws. Great...

8. Oh, and it also lost the government a huge source of taxes (not that I approve of those excise taxes, but I've found my opposition to them to be quixotic at best) and turned the quality of that product to crap. Thanks.

9. Prohibition was actually immensely popular...at first. It must have been, the 18th Amendment was ratified very quickly. Almost as quickly as the 21st Amendment was, 13 years later.

10. Prohibition was not, however, foisted upon us by Bible-thumpers, "conservatives," puritans, rural nutjobs, or Republicans. They had their place in it, but the progressives, liberals, city-dwellers, public healthmongers, and Democrats were right there beside them. Not a judgment either way, just truth. The Anti-Saloon League was the NRA of its day, the first real power politics practitioner in the modern era, and they didn't care what party you belonged to, as long as you promised to vote Dry.

11. Prohibition was foisted on us by a progressive lie, much like keg registration is being shoved down our throats now. It started in one town/township/county. But the drinking wouldn't stop, and booze would come in from every border. "Give us statewide prohibition," would be the cry, "and we'll show you how it can work! The outsiders are ruining our good work!" And they'd get statewide Prohibition, and the drinking wouldn't stop, and booze would come in from every border. "Give us national prohibition," was the cry, "and we'll show you how it can work! The outsiders are ruining our good work!" And they got national Prohibition...and we got Al Capone, Dutch Schultz, and Joe Kennedy. "Give us more money for enforcement, give us the military to stop smugglers, give us easier search warrants!" And they got it...and nothing happened. Prohibition, as Will Rogers said, made you want to cry in your beer, and then denied you the beer to cry in. Finally, people got fed up, and started talking Repeal.

12. Prohibition got a big boost from business -- John Rockefeller, Henry Ford, and other industrialists thought it would mean a clean and sober workforce that they could get to work more like the automatons they wanted -- and government -- because the feds now had the income tax and were rolling in revenue, and thought they didn't need booze tax any more. So did Repeal. When Rockefeller saw that his workers were still drunk, and now were sick from bootleg crap booze, and saw the taxes going to pay for an increasingly corrupt enforcement bureaucracy, he did an about-face. When the Depression hit in 1929, income tax revenues dropped, and the feds needed money to pay for jobs programs -- hey, start up the booze biz again, it's a two-fer!

13. Women were a major force for Prohibition -- they were feeling empowered by the suffragist movement and the Progressive movement -- and, again, for Repeal. Upper-class women were revolted by the corruption, by the blatant hypocrisy of Dry politicians who drank like fish, and by the lack of human sympathy displayed by the more cruel Drys (those guys who wanted to poison the drunks). Urban Catholics and immigrants were against Prohibition because it simply seemed unnatural to them; well, it was.

14. Repeal became unstoppable as the Depression deepened because of the two-fer effect mentioned above. But the damage to America's palate had already taken place. We got used to lighter (cheaper) beer, white (unaged) spirits, Canadian and Scotch (smuggled) whisky, and sweet fortified (cheaper) wine. It took us decades to re-discover what we'd lost.

15. Some of it never was recovered. Thousands -- thousands -- of breweries closed, never to re-open, and the idea of the local brewery was irreparably crippled. Hundreds of distilleries closed, and bourbon and rye distillers were left with a huge, irreplaceable hole in their warehouse inventories. Young bourbons tasted vile, and sold for such low prices that the bourbon business referred to sales as "swapping dollars": the cashflow from the income just barely balanced the outflow of production costs. Rye whiskey, America's heart-warming frontier spirit and the pride of the Monongahela, practically disappeared. We had a hole shot through our memories and our national palate that would take years to begin to replace.

16. Repeal was a gloriously happy occasion. The beer trucks rolled, wine flowed, hipflasks were openly waved. Happy days were here again! I would truly love to go back in time for those two days -- Happy New Beer in April of 1933 and Repeal Day eight months later -- to watch America celebrate the return of John Barleycorn and Demon Rum. And to eat the livers of the Drys...how did Conan put it? "Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of their women." Oh, yeah. That would have been sweet, watching the Anti-Saloon League hating all those fun-loving boozers.

17. The Drys often got the last laugh, or at least a long one. States remained dry, then counties, towns, as local option laws held on. Screwed-up liquor laws kept things weird: in some states, the word "saloon" was illegal. Morality and government greed got mixed in an unholy combination of taxes and control schemes: state stores, rapacious prices, and customers treated like unclean supplicants. An alliance of Baptists (who wanted no drinking) and bootleggers (who wanted no legal booze sales) kept many counties in Kentucky dry to this day. The Drys were salted through the state legislatures, and everyone seemed to think that the return of Prohibition was lurking right around the corner -- after all, it had happened once -- and they had to step cautiously lest it return.

18. But the Drys had been beaten. Prohibition continued to recede, the WCTU became a joke, the ASL withered and died (corrupt itself, at the end), and "temperance" was forgotten. The New Drys, the neo-prohibitionists, didn't really start to re-group until the 1960s, when they found a new home among the Science Geniuses and the Safety Nazis, the good people who were going to save us from ourselves with Science. They realized that Prohibition had been tried, and failed. They openly announced that they would bring their new order to the nation by limiting access to booze (liquor license procedures), by tightening who could drink (the 21 LDA), by re-defining "drunk" (the 0.08 BAC DUI limit), and by raising excise taxes. And that's what they've been hammering away on ever since, with some success.

19. How do we fight it? Two things. First, to quote Mad-Eye Moody (the fake one) in the Harry Potter books: CONSTANT VIGILANCE! The New Drys are constantly flooding the media with anti-alcohol bullshit. Whenever they do, someone should counter them. The brewers, distillers, and vintners didn't in 1919, and look what it got them. Don't ignore them; they are at work every day, earning their grant money and taking aim at your fun. Now, the second thing...we have to admit that they're not all wrong. I've heard ridiculous bullshit from our side too: "You can't get drunk on beer." "You're not an alcoholic if you drink the good stuff." And worst of all, this:

..

..

That's right, silence, as in not admitting the problems of alcohol exist. We have to be honest, or we can't hold them to the same standard. Remember: the reason we got Prohibition was because there really was a problem. A big one. We have to step up and be honest about fighting it.

20. In the meantime, the full fruits of Repeal are sweeping the nation at an increasing rate. Long-dry towns in the South (and North) are going wet, ridiculous laws are being repealed (limits on beer strength; draft beer is allowed in Montgomery, Alabama; South Carolina finally gets rid of airline bottles at bars; and the PA case law...how long, O Lord, how long?!), and attitudes are changing (lowering the 21 LDA is being openly discussed for the first time in 20 years). The New Drys are fighting fiercely, and ground is exchanged back and forth, but we're definitely in the fight.

21. As for me...I intend to celebrate this momentous 75th Anniversary of Repeal in the same way everyone else did in 1933. I'm going to get me to a brewery, and get a few big seidels of good lager beer.

Why Don't You Drink Craft Beer?

I drink American "craft" beer most of the time when I drink beer. I'd say "almost every time," but I drink quite a bit of non-American craft beer, and I do occasionally wind up with something like a Michelob or a Guinness. But probably 70-80% of the beer I drink is brewed in America, and is not a mainstream-type lager.

I'm also a straight, white male; and I'm like a 0 on the Kinsey Scale straight, 100% German-Scots white. I am neither proud nor defensive about any of that, just laying it out because it's relevant in this context.

"This context" is the aggregate of craft beer drinkers, and if you haven't ever noticed before -- which would be tough, unless you're solidly non-self-aware -- the aggregate of craft beer drinkers is a white swordfight. It's guys, we're white, and we're straight: Straight White Males. The floor of a big fest, like the GABF, is thronged with them (this pic from the 2008 GABF shows about 12 women that I can see, I don't see any black folk, and, well, an Internet picture doesn't do gaydar). There are exceptions: plenty of women like craft beer, I know some black, Latino, and Asian folks that do, and I know a couple gay and lesbian craft drinkers (and yeah, there are probably more than I know). But work the numbers, and you're looking at a group that's almost 9 out of 10 white straight guys. (Craft brewers aren't too much different, looking at who was up on stage to accept GABF awards this year (and last year (and the year before...)))

How come? I know why I like the stuff -- no, wait...maybe I don't, but I for damn sure know I do like it, liked it from the first full beer I had, and liked craft beer almost as quickly. But I don't know why it's so exclusive to SWMs.

Thing is, with everything I drink -- wine, beer, liquor -- there are SWMs drinking "the good stuff," whether it's single malts, old growth zinfandels, craft beer, what have you. Without going into stereotyping, a lot more women drink good wine than drink good beer, gays and lesbians have similarly been known to enjoy good wine, and black folk have gone into cognac in a big way. My point: it's not a fear of flavor.

Is it us? Does the behavior, character, stereotypes of straight white men add up to something everyone else just doesn't want to be around? I do remember hanging with a black couple, friends of ours, at an Irish bar Cathy and I liked, and the guy asking, "What the hell is it with white folk, anyway? You get a couple Guinnesses in you, and you all start singing!" Is it that? (I'm pretty sure he was kidding...I am, mostly.) These days we all get along in the workplace -- pretty much -- so I'm guessing this isn't it, although interpersonal strain is a weird area.

Maybe it's something much simpler: nobody ever asked. A lot of conversation in craft beer aficionado circles (sounds so much better than "talk among the geeks") is about how to get other people to drink and like craft beer. They talk about it all the time over on BeerAdvocate. But it's always about "my brother" or "this guy at work." White guys talking to white guys.

I know I try to get women to drink craft beer, and I've had some success. But as for gays and African-Americans, these days, after doing this beer/booze gig full-time for 13 years...most of the gays and non-white-Americans I know, like most of everyone I know, already drink craft beer, and that's how I met them.

We need some diversity, for diverse reasons. First, it is always nice to get some variance of opinion and thought. As brilliantly illustrated here and here, and here, getting a view from somewhere other than SWM-ville is a good thing. The SWMs are cool, I love us, but we tend to group-think (as any other group does, and the more homogeneous the group, so goes the thinking). Break it up.

Second, different people bring different tastes, different desires. I've always said we need more kinds of brewpubs; we need more kinds of everything to do with beer. Bringing in new groups to drive that difference is good. Do I think that because someone is gay/female/black they would like something other than me? Not necessarily, but chances are better than zero that they might.

They're also more market. It is in every craft beer drinker's interest to get more people turned on to craft beer. (Well, except the snooty little snots who get off on liking something no one else 'gets' because it brings meaning to their life, and they can always worship some tiny output brewery, much like the cork dorks and their subscription-only grape juice.) The more folks who drink it, the more places they'll sell it, the fresher it will be, the better off and more stable the breweries will be -- kind of like we've been seeing in the past three years, only more so. Getting more people, more diverse people, turned on to great beer variety will help that process along immensely.

So...open challenge to craft brewers, to craft drinkers, to other beer bloggers. Think about how you can be more inclusive. Tweak your advertising? Recruit diversity? Get your SWM blinders off and realize that other people might like beer too? Get out into some places you haven't been before, and talk beer. You've got the SWMs, the people that put you in your comfort zone. Now stretch. Talk to people. It may not be easy, but it may not be as hard as you think. We've got an African-American president who likes beer, and drank craft beer, in a brewpub. Big wedge.

I'd love to see this happen. Because I really do believe beer will save the world -- not quite sure how, but it's got a lot of potential -- and the more people working with us, the better.

Which president would you rather drink a beer with?

Forget presidential candidates, that's so over. Now we've got a president and a president-elect to compare. Bush, the former alcoholic (hey, he said it, not me) and current tight-assed teetotaler? Or Obama, a guy we've seen drink beer recently (and apparently enjoy), who practically got into a chugging contest with Hillary Clinton?

Even though Obama does have a non-drinking VP (although Biden happily is not a priss about it; he just doesn't drink), it's pretty obvious. I'd rather have a beer with him (um, and Michelle, if she, you know, just happened to be around...), hell, I'd rather have a root beer with Biden than Bucklers with Bush. Which, I guess, is as good a time as any to say that yes, I voted Democrat in a presidential election for the first time in my life yesterday. (I'd been voting Libertarian for the past 20 years, but couldn't bring myself to vote for Bob Barr.) Should make himself happy (or smug).

Although... Here, read this from The Shark Guys, some Canadian bloggers who have fun with booze, politics (American politics? Come on guys, some self-respect), and Sarah Palin. It's a Presidential Drinker Profile of Obama, and points out that he does so like beer.

The only thing that concerns me, and it concerned me when he said it, is this:

In March, he made the more impressive showing at a bar of the two Democrat candidates – Hillary did her best, as we blogged here, but really it was one for the road for her. Obama ordered a Yuengling beer – a politician’s choice since it is a popular and locally made Pennsylvania beer.

What was more telling were his comments after placing the order, “Is it expensive though?… Wanna make sure it’s not some designer beer or something.” Here Obama made the questionable move of showing contempt for designer/microbrewed beer. He risked painting himself as one of those guys who will mock you for purchasing a nice microbrew “because it tastes the same as any other beer they got [link added by me]. Why waste your money?”

Well, yeah. After sipping up ESB at the Bethlehem Brew Works, what kinda shit is that? I'll grant, it's just the kind of thing he might be concerned that the McCain populists might have pounced on, but dude, you've already been in a brewpub, what's there to lose? I'm just surprised that with all the class warfare going on at the time (in a Democrat primary?!), no one in Obama's campaign picked up on Hillary drinking a Canadian-made beer and a Canadian whisky. Apparently, neither did The Shark Guys.

Eh. It's just beer. We're both above and beneath all of this, which isn't a bad place to be. Cheers, folks. The campaign is over, let the recovery begin.

David Shipula is bugging me

David Shipula is the current president of the Malt Beverage Distributors Association of Pennsylvania. (Disclosure: I was compensated to travel to Pittsburgh and address the MBDAPA several years ago; I do freelance consulting for some members of the Association.) He is also the owner of Beer Super in Wilkes-Barre. He seems to be a good guy, working for the Association.

But he's saying some stuff in the papers lately that bugs me.

In the May 19 issue of the Philadelphia Inquirer, he writes in a piece titled "Keep Beer in Beer Stores," "Now, I can't be the only person who sees a problem with making it easy to buy beer and gasoline in one convenient location."

No, you're not, but just because two people think french-kissing makes girls pregnant doesn't mean we're going to be overrun with babies. People drive to gas stations to buy gas, sure, but they also drive to Beer Super to buy beer. Are the gasoline fumes going to drive them to drink to excess on the way home? There's nothing about buying gas that makes people more likely to drink. Is it the "ice-cold sixpack" "waved in their face" that Shipula brings up that's the problem at the gas station? Funny, because he also lauds people buying six-packs at Pennsylvania's restaurants and bars, most of which they're driving away with, judging by the parking lots at so many of them. I know there's no bar within walking distance of my house. Beer at gas stations driving people to drink is a bogeyman. It makes no sense in the light of day, or reason.

Then he says, "They also want the supermarket shopping experience to remain something the entire family can enjoy without giving children - from toddlers to teenagers - the idea that beer is as harmless as, say, a calorie-laden, high-fructose corn syrup-laced soft drink."

Yet it's okay for beer to be sold at a restaurant or deli or pizzeria where the family's getting dinner? What, it's raw food that makes beer scary? Besides, when was the last time you saw "the entire family" enjoy "the supermarket shopping experience"? On an Ozzie & Harriet re-run? This paragraph is so ridiculous it's embarrassing.

In the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat on June 2, he wrote a letter that said "Sheetz has its gas pumps on one property deed and its convenience store on another to skirt the law prohibiting beer sales at gas stations."

What law would that be? I searched the entire PA Liquor Code, and the only mention I saw of gas stations, service stations, or gasoline sales is here, under the rules for who has standing to petition licenses being granted (standing to petition, i.e., those who have half a leg to stand on as opposed to total loonies), where it's noted that the MBDA had standing to petition an "application for a double transfer of an eating place malt beverage license to premises on which a restaurant, convenience store, and gas station would operate", that is, the Sheetz case. There is no such law. Period.

In the Scranton Times-Tribune on April 8, he wrote another letter that said "In fact, the buying power of large supermarket chains like Wegmans makes it very difficult for small food and beverage producers to compete profitably. Shelf space is at such a premium in supermarkets that manufacturers and distributors are forced to pay “slotting allowances” to even get their products displayed on supermarket shelves."

Manufacturers and distributors do pay "slotting allowances," also known as "slotting fees," to get their products on supermarket shelves...except for alcohol beverages. That's illegal, slotting fees for alcohol beverages having been banned by the then-Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms in 1995, a federal ban. Once again, a bogeyman: grocery wholesalers have to pay slotting fees, beer wholesalers do not. As it happens, Wegmans loves small producers; it gives their stores a competitive advantage. I've been in Wegmans in New York: the beer selection's quite nice.

That's also where he says this: "Individual beer distributors can own one and only one license for retail, off-premises consumption — and then only in quantities of one case or more of beer. Already, Wegmans has been granted six licenses by the Liquor Control Board."

True, but they're not the same kind of license! Wegman's licenses are so-called "deli licenses," which allow only sixpack sales. That's how chains of bars own more than one license, something Shipula doesn't mind. Why doesn't he care that Appleby's, for example, owns multiple licenses that allow retail, off-premises consumption (as all tavern licenses do in PA)? Because Appleby's doesn't sell sixpacks to go. If they aren't competition, he doesn't care. This is all about money and competition.

Shipula admits that, finally, after throwing smoke. He says all he wants is a level playing field. But that's not going to happen with the maze-like provisions of the Pennsylvania Liquor Code, where the MBDAPA apparently found reason to argue that if Sheetz doesn't want to sell on-premise, they can't sell off-premise. This ignores Appleby's, of course, which does sell on-premise but chooses not to sell off-premise, as do many, if not the majority of Pennsylvania's restaurants with liquor licenses.

These arguments play on fears -- Beer is dangerous! People will use it irresponsibly at the slightest provocation! -- that it is stunning to hear coming from the head of a beer industry association. They are full of statements and implications that are simply not true. They are worrisome.

I understand that the distributors see supermarket sales as the single greatest threat to their livelihood, and this looks like the wedge to open that up. I think that instead of spending their time and money fighting against something that is simply, clearly legal under the Code as it stands, they should be putting their efforts into changing the laws that govern how all booze is sold in PA. Get rid of the case law and allow six-pack and single sales for distributors ASAP. Get rid of the State Store system and let distributors sell wine and spirits. Get normal.

I am on the side of the beer business. I support them, I work with them, I'm grateful to them. But I am a consumer. I want to buy beer where and how everyone else in the Union does, and I don't see any good reasons why I should not be able to. All I see above are bad reasons. Let's fix this. All of it.

Another great reason for a longer primary season...

I've long been an opponent of the "front-loading" of primaries that the political parties have been pushing for years. Get it over with quickly, they say, and let's get on with beating our real opponents; the not-so-secret subtext being that the quicker it's over, the less time we spend beating up on each other, leaving a bruised and poorer candidate. All too often it leads to the selection of a candidate who may not be the best, who hasn't been tested, and to states like Pennsylvania, with late primaries, not getting a voice in the nomination process.

This "wisdom" has been shown to be bogus in this election, as the two Democratic candidates not only have become stronger -- Obama sharpens his positions and got a fantastic opportunity to make a major speech on race relations, Clinton loosens up a bit and gets a major boost from Chelsea (anyone remember the great job Mike Nutter's daughter did?) -- but they've continued to raise huge amounts of money.

Best of all, they've gotten so run ragged by the campaign that they're rolling up their sleeves and having a drink. See the great picture above (from today's Philadelphia Inquirer's, taken by Sarah J. Glover) of Obama at Bethlehem Brew Works, teeing up for a beer with Peg Fegley -- looks like maybe he's got an ESB? (Yes, that's what it was, according to an e-mail from BBW, and the Senator's reaction was "Now that's a good beer. I like that. That's good stuff.") Hillary had a photo op boilermaker in Indiana -- appropriate, in Purdue-land -- and is reported in today's Inky as being fond of Blue Moon with an orange slice (oh my, a Democrat, drinking a Coors product, that's made in Canada? Oh, the humanity!).

Kidding aside, folks, this is good. Everything that puts beer or whiskey (anyone know what whiskey Hillary drank in Indiana? Ruch, I'm not posting any comments from you...) in the mainstream, as part of a normal person's life -- which it is -- is good. Showing national figures drinking one drink without going on a mad binge is good.

And, well, Obama in a brewpub...that's freakin' gold, people.

A Sixer for your Thoughts

I've got a new Buzz up on my website: A Six-pack of Thoughts. There are some continuing problems with drinking, and I just had to take a swing at a few of them: alcohol-fueled bad behavior, booze used as a scapegoat, rising beer prices without rising brewer's profits, the crappy situation with drinking in Pennsylvania, squealing anti-alcohol New Dry weenies, and the disaster we call bar licenses. Feast your eyes.