Via the LAT: Beer battle brewing in Alabama

Seventy-five years after Prohibition, beer aficionados in Alabama are fighting for the right to brew and chug as they please. That’s raised the ire of Southern Baptists, who frown on alcohol in any form. As they jockey for advantage in the Legislature, one side quotes Scripture. The other cites BeerAdvocate.com. One talks morality. The other, malt.

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Here in Alabama, home-brewing beer has long been a Class A misdemeanor, with a penalty of up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine. It’s another Class A misdemeanor to sell or distribute any beer with more than 6% alcohol content. That puts off-limits 85 of the 100 top-rated beers in the world, as ranked by BeerAdvocate.com. “They think everyone down here is a bunch of damn rednecks and all we drink is Budweiser,” grumbles Tipton, 48.

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Whole categories of beer can’t be sold in Alabama (except on federal military bases, where the state law doesn’t apply). Among the forbidden brews: thick, dark Russian stouts, smoky Scottish ales, bittersweet barleywines and the legendary beers made by Belgium’s Trappist monks.

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In fact, Alabama authorities rarely prosecute anyone for home-brewing, or for possessing beer with more than 6% alcohol content.

By law, residents may enjoy such beers only if they order them shipped from an out-of-state vendor to a government warehouse, run by the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. They can pick up the shipment after paying taxes and certifying that the beers are exclusively for their personal use.

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Free the Hops, which claims 750 dues-paying members, has introduced two bills in Alabama: one to legalize home-brewing and the other to permit sales of beer with alcohol content of up to 13.9% by volume. Last week the state House approved the measure raising the alcohol limit in beer; the Senate is expected to take it up soon. The home-brew bill has not been scheduled for debate.

Arguing that alcohol can corrupt body, mind and soul, Alabama’s Southern Baptists, a politically powerful group, are fighting to derail the 13.9% bill in the Senate.

This kind of paternalism drives me crazy, as not only is it an infringement of the individual liberty of citizens, it is utterly illogical. Given that one can obtain high-alcohol content beverages without any great difficulty (i.e., hard alcohol) there is no good argument for banning specific types of beer. Further, it is physically easier to down a large number of Bud Lites than it is to down a large number of chocolate stouts.

Indeed, it is my experience that people interested in quality beer aren’t drinking to get drunk. Beyond, the argument from the Alabama Baptist state Convention that the current ban on high-alcohol beer is for the purpose of keeping teens safe is bogus:

He says legislators seem responsive to his warnings that high-alcohol beer will endanger teenagers, making it easier for them to get drunk.

“We’re losing too many kids now on the road because of drinking and driving. Why aggravate that?” says state Rep. DuWayne Bridges.

Stuart Carter, the president of Free the Hops, counters that most of the higher-alcohol beers do not appeal to teens. They’re thicker, more complex, often more bitter. They’re also considerably more expensive. To him, craft beers have nothing to do with getting drunk. They’re all about flavor.

The whole argument is ridiculous. I have a hard time accepting the notion that in states where high-end beer is legally sold that teenager drinking and driving is somehow a bigger problem than in states where only crappy beer is sold.