Politics & Law

We Are The 5%

October 27, 2011

While I support the Occupy Wall Street movement, this is something even nearer and dearer to my heart. I don’t know who came up with it, I saw it when Firestone Walker tweeted it, along with the hashtag #OccupythePub and the simple message: “Craft beer drinkers unite. We might only be 5% of the market [...]

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Jester King Sues Texas Over Antiquated Beer Regulations

October 25, 2011

The Jester King Craft Brewery in Austin, Texas, is my new hero, but then I’m a fan of their Don Quixote kind of crazy. The windmill they’re currently tilting at is the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC). Like most states, and the Federal government, most of the laws regarding alcohol were written in the months [...]

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Prevent Mate Morphosis

October 24, 2011

While searching for more information about yesterday’s featured artist for my Beer In Art series, I discovered a second artist named Ben Sanders, this one working as an illustrator in Australia. Perhaps more importantly, he’s actually worked on a campaign to reduce drunk driving down under. The campaign, sponsored by the Motor Accident Commission, was [...]

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Craft Beer: A True Underdog Story

October 21, 2011

Here’s a fun video about craft beer’s struggles to get to market. With a hat tip to Brian Stechschulte at Bay Area Craft Beer, it’s a student film by a Michael Jolly, done for his “Motion Graphics class. It’s an animated info graphic concerning American Craft Beer. I created all artwork, narration, and animation myself. [...]

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Propaganda Masquerading As A Report

October 5, 2011

When is a report not a report? When it’s created as propaganda by an organization with the sole purpose of advancing its anti-alcohol agenda. In fact, just calling such propaganda a “report” seems dishonest in and of itself. Witness today’s press release from the self-appointed sheriff of Alcohol Alley, the newly renamed Alcohol Justice (f.k.a. [...]

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Global Be(er) Responsible Day

September 23, 2011

Today, Anheuser-Busch InBev is promoting a new holiday focusing on safe and responsible drinking behavior and especially using designated drivers. They’re calling the effort “Global Be(er) Responsible Day.” From the press release: More than 1,500 Anheuser-Busch employees across the United States won’t be at their desks on Friday, Sept. 23. Instead, they’ll be out visiting [...]

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Slate’s Anti-Alcohol Hatchet Job

August 29, 2011

I used to think of Slate’s online magazine as cutting edge stuff, but lately their coverage, at least of things I know something about, shows them to be staunchly conservative. Given that they’re owned by the Washington Post, I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised. Today an article by William Saletan on the web titlebar [...]

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California Legislative Update

August 4, 2011

There’s been a flurry of activity in California’s political power center lately, with a couple of new bills signed by governor Jerry Brown in Sacramento this week. Tasting Room Bill (AB 1014) The Tasting Room Bill makes it easier for breweries to serve samples of their beer without having to comply with all the same [...]

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Minnesota Government Shutdown Also Stops Beer Production In State

July 13, 2011

Here’s a weird consequence of our stunted economy; when the state government in Minnesota shut down July 1, MillerCoors “had 39 ‘brand label registrations’ that expired last month, and the employees who process renewals were laid off when state government shut down July 1 in a budget dispute,” according to an AP story published today [...]

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Beer Good For Economic Growth Worldwide

June 27, 2011

My wife’s a political news junkie and reads such arcane fare as Foreign Policy, a magazine covering global politics and economics. She forwarded me Chug for Growth , an article detailing how the beer industry is having a positive effect on economies around the world, especially in emerging nations. Here’s how it begins: The myth [...]

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Moonshot Grounded

June 25, 2011

Ever since the FDA absurdly went after drinks that combine alcohol and caffeine, the future of New Century Brewing’s Moonshot Beer was uncertain. Founded by Rhonda Kallman in 2001, after she left the Boston Beer Co., New Century Brewing created a craft light beer, Edison Light, along with the caffeinated Moonshot, which debuted in 2004. [...]

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Beware The Bogeyman Of Beer, He’s After Your Kids

June 24, 2011

In a particularly ugly display of shameless greed and naked propaganda, the Marin Institute is using summer scare tactics to fuel their fund-raising efforts. Essentially their reasoning goes as follows. The summer advertising for sweet, malt-based beverages that come in colorful packages — like Four Loko, Jooce, Sparks, Blast, etc. — is “targeting” your children [...]

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U.S. Senate Establishes Small Brewers Caucus

June 20, 2011

The Brewers Association (BA) announced today that the United States Senate established a Senate Small Brewers Caucus. The new Caucus was founded by Senators Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). From the press release: In a Dear Colleague letter, Senators Baucus and Crapo noted, “In recent years, the more than 1,700 craft brewers all [...]

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The Politics Of Never Being Satisfied

June 3, 2011

The anti-alcohol Marin Institute had a little item in one of their e-mail missives a few days ago, reporting on the news that Anheuser-Busch InBev announced that they would be lowering the alcohol content of their Tilt from 12% a.b.v. to 8%. You’d think that the anti-alcohol groups that have been whining about these drinks [...]

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Wisconsin Legislature Attacks Craft Brewers

June 3, 2011

With craft beer being the only segment of the brewing industry showing strong growth, you’d think that state governments trying to fix our current economic woes would be doing everything they can to help one of the few bright spots in American business. But never underestimate the power of lobbying by interests with more money [...]

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Beer Missing From MyPlate

June 3, 2011

Yesterday the USDA scrapped their old food pyramid in favor of a new nutritional chart. The new one is called MyPlate, and as you’d expect it’s shaped like a plate. It’s also a bit simpler than previous efforts, divided into just four groups: proteins, grains, fruit and vegetables. And just off the plate is a [...]

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