In 2007, Mike McDole was one of the three winners of the Longshot homebrewing contest, sponsored by Boston Beer. He won for his Imperial IPA — an homage to Russian River’s Pliny the Elder — and was set to have it bottled when the hop shortage hit. Unfortunately, because his style called for a lot of scarce and expensive hops, the bottling of Mike’s beer was postponed. Hopefully, we’ll see bottles of it soon.

Meanwhile, Mike is also involved in the Brewers Association’s Pro-Am Homebrew Competition, where a commercial brewer will make a homebrewer’s award-winning recipe and that’s then entered in a special GABF judging contest. He was set to brew this week at Russian River Brewing, but Vinnie’s fermenter space got unexpectedly all tied up and he ended up at 21st Amendment, brewing his newest creation dubbed “Tasty,” an American IPA Mike describes as “Pliny light.”

Mike McDole and Shaun O’Sullivan, brewing together at 21st Amendment Brewery.

Recently, over 120 college and university presidents called on Congress to “consider” lower the drinking age from 21 to 18. The Amethyst Initiative is the brainchild of John McCardell, President Emeritus of Middlebury College, who’s also the founder of Choose Responsibility. Actually, the initiative doesn’t advocate lowering the drinking age per se, but does instead ask that the debate over doing so be open and robust, something it has not been in a long time. The neo-prohibitionists, of course, are apoplectic after so many years of bullying lawmakers with little or no dissent allowed. Nearly 25 years after the age was increased nationally (at least that was the effect of tying the age to federal highway funds), many people are questioning the laws’ effectiveness. More troubling for the anti-alcohol advocates is that many of the people asking for the debate are not as easily dismissed and controlled as in the past.

As a result, we’re seeing increased efforts on the part of anti-alcohol organizations to spread fear, skewed statistics and propaganda. Case in point is an editorial by a media-savvy M.D., Darshak Sanghavi, whose recent hit piece in Slate, Quicker Liquor, Should we lower the legal drinking age? , begins reasonably enough but quickly goes off the rails revealing itself as more churlish propaganda.

What initially makes my blood boil about such propaganda from the medical community is that it disguises opinion as fact. His article is essentially an op-ed piece but with the column’s subtitle as “Health and Medicine Explained” and his imprimatur of “Medical Examiner” it sounds like the doctor is dispensing well-settled facts instead of what it is in reality, well-crafted use of scary sounding statistics that add up to nothing more than neo-prohibitionist propaganda. Ever since my son’s autism diagnosis, my faith in the medical community has sank like a stone. I no longer automatically trust that doctors are more concerned about their patients than themselves. You expect trade organizations for various industries to consider their interests of paramount importance and above all other considerations. But for some reason, we don’t expect organizations of doctors and the like to be as selfishly single-minded. But of course they are, because they’re human just like you and me. They care about their own families, their careers, and themselves no less they anyone else. And so medical organizations today make pronouncements that sound like they’re good for us, but in reality are often in the interests of the medical community instead.

So when Dr. Sanghavi uses phrases like “in truth” he’s really imparting opinion, citing specific studies that support his agenda. Alcohol advocates could cite equally reputable studies that say just the opposite. Lying with statistics is nothing new—though the science of how do it is getting more sophisticated—and so much of any study has to do with its methodology, its framing and the sample. That’s true on both sides, I freely admit, but again because Dr. Sanghavi has “Dr.” in front of his name and I have “Mr.,” the general public will tend to believe him over me every time, regardless of which one of us makes the stronger case. And with what’s essentially a public policy question and not an issue of medical fact, that strikes me as an underhanded tactic. But when he compares anyone advocating lowering the drinking age to drug addicts, it’s clear the gloves have come off.

Sanghavi goes on to cite scary statistic after scary statistic, but after saying how wonderful raising the drinking age has been for society concludes that binge drinking is still rising alarmingly. Hmm? How can that be? He also concedes that education does work, yet that also contradicts his assertion that other countries with more permissive drinking laws—where often drinking begins at home with education—don’t have lower binging levels. Hmm?

His solution naturally is the time-honored suggestion that everyone else who’s over 21 and who drinks responsibly should shoulder the expense by paying more for their beer. I’m not going to debate where beer taxes should be relative to other products, but the notion that making them more expensive for minors to buy is a reasonable solution, is patently ridiculous, especially as it punishes everybody else. Again, beer is singled out because it’s the “preferred choice of underage drinkers.” Not so fast, doc. As I wrote about last week, a recent CASA survey of teens age 12-17 showed a very clear preference not for beer, but hard alcohol sweetened with something else. Beer’s preference in the survey exactly equaled that of wine, at only 16%. But beer as the bogeyman in the neo-prohibitionist playbook is such a staple of the cause that I suspect it’s very difficult for them to shift gears, even as their own evidence contradicts their arguments.

But as for raising taxes, and by extension prices overall, from the point of view of people who clearly hate alcohol, I guess they figure it doesn’t matter if the rest of society suffers. He compares this position to chemotherapy: it “can’t cure terminal cancer, but it can make patients hurt a little less and perhaps survive a little longer.” Sanghavi adds that therefore since “the current drinking age undeniably reduces teen binge-drinking,” we should keep 21 the minimum age. Yet just a few paragraphs before he says the following.

There are more binge drinkers on campuses today. Among college students, the percentage of “frequent-heavy” drinkers remained stable from 1977-89, at about 30 percent. However, bingeing began increasing steadily throughout the late 1990s, long after the legal age was increased.

So which is it? Does the current drinking age reduce binge-drinking as he concludes or not, as he emphatically states earlier?

But his conclusion also included this bit of wisdom. “Of course, in the end a lot of teens will binge-drink, no matter what the law says. But that’s not an argument against making the legal age 21 years old to buy and consume it.” Actually, I’d say that’s exactly what it is. It’s clear that at 21 it’s not working in the way anyone intended. That’s the very point 128 college and university presidents are trying to make, that current policy needs a radical change. Even Candy Lightner, the founder of MADD—who Sanghavi cites—believes that she may have been wrong and in any case believes the organization she started has veered far from its original and intended purpose. If the age of consent were lower, say where the most of the rest of the civilized world sets it, at 18, and laws were amended to allow alcohol education in both the home and in school, dramatic results may indeed be possible.

But such reasonable thinking is, in the end, not what Sanghavi will tolerate, calling such ideas “snake oil” and the people who suggest them “peddlers.” But he’s the medicine man dispensing propaganda. Using the status of a medical doctorate to lend authority to an argument of public policy; now that’s deceptive salesmanship.

I got this earlier this morning from Oskar Blues Brewing, a fitting bit of humor given today the Democratic National Convention begins in Denver, Colorado.

My friend Jim Woods, who owns MateVeza, a beer made with Yerba Mate tea, is putting on what looks to be a very fun beer and food event. It’s set to take place on September 13 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 at the Bambuddha Lounge in San Francisco. Tickets are $35 in advance before September 1, $40 after that date, and $45 at the door. Proceeds from the beerunch will be donated to the Pachamama Alliance. The Beerunch menu will include:

1. To start things off, a beermosa featuring North Coast Brewing Company’s Pranqster, a Belgian style golden ale, with freshly squeezed organic orange juice.
2. Marin Bluebeery Ale paired with Blueberry Crumb Cake
3. MateVeza Yerba Mate Ale paired with Huevos Rancheros
4. Brother David’s Double Abbey Style Ale paired with Peppered Bacon
5. Bittersweet Lenny’s Rye IPA paired with Grilled Rye with Gruyere Cheese
6. Bison Chocolate Stout paired with Buttermilk German Pancakes with Strawberry Sauce
7. Anderson Valley Barney Flats Oatmeal Stout paired with Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
8. And for a morning cap, Kona Brewing Company’s Pipeline Porter, brewed with freshly roasted 100% Kona Coffee

Sounds like a great menu, it should be a blast.

 

 
8.28

Beerunch

Bambuddha Lounge, 601 Eddy Street, San Francisco, California
The lounge is located inside the Phoenix Hotel
415.885.5088 [ website ]
 

Yesterday afternoon a rally for the American Homebrewers Association was held at Anchor Brewing. I stopped by to see Gary Glass, director of the AHA (and who I interviewed earlier this year for a story), along with Erin Glass and Bradley Lantham. I’ve know all three from attending CBC and GABF for many years so I took the opportunity to see them when they weren’t working at full throttle at the BA events. I also knew a number of nearly 150 homebrewers that showed up at Anchor, so it was a fun afternoon. Afterwards, we went to a few other places in the city, from 21st Amendment to City Beer Store to Magnolia.

AHA Director Gary Glass, Erin Glass and Bradley Lantham, in town from the Brewers Association for the Rally.

For more photos from the AHA Rally at Anchor Brewery, visit the photo gallery.
 

The Beer Chef’s next beer dinner this summer will feature the “The Unique Beers of Stone Brewing Co..” It will be a three-course dinner and well worth the $85 price of admission. It will be held at the Cathedral Hill Hotel on Thursday, August 28, 2008, beginning with a reception at 6:30 p.m. Call 415.674.3406 for reservations as soon as possible. I’ll see you there.

The Menu:

Reception: 7:00 PM

Beer Chef’s Hors D’Oeuvre

Beer: Stone Pale Ale

Dinner: 7:30 PM

First Course

Jumbo Day Boat Scallop with Dungeness Crab, California Osetra Caviar and Capay Farms Yellow Doll Watermelon Gazpacho

Beer: Stone Epic Ale 08.08.08

Second Course:

Tenderloin of Berkshire Pork with Bellwether Farms Pepato Cheese Ravioli and Ancho Chile Jus

Beer: Stone Ruination IPA

Third Course:

Scharffen Berger Chocolate Pudding Cake with Crème Anglaise and Compote of Honey Crisp Farms Mariposa Plums

Beer: Stone Twelfth Anniversary Bitter Chocolate Oatmeal Stout

Stone co-owner Greg Koch, who’ll be at next Thursday’s dinner,
in front of his Stone World Bistro & Gardens near San Diego.

 
8.28

Dinner with the Brewmaster: Stone Brewing

Cathedral Hill Hotel, 1101 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, California
415.674.3406 [ website ]
 

In Brent on Beer in the Marin IJ, my friend Brent Ainsworth did a nice article on Christian Kazakoff becoming the new head brewer at Iron Springs Pub & Brewery in Fairfax.

The American Homebrewers Association will be holding a membership rally tomorrow, Saturday August 23, at Anchor Brewing in San Francisco. They’re a fun way to learn more about homebrewing, a hobby I heartily recommend, even though it’s been many years since I homebrewed. Most of today’s commercial brewers started out as homebrewers, perhaps one of tomorrow’s brewers could be you.

It’s free if you’re already an AHA member, and only $33 if not (regular AHA membership is $38 so you’ll save five bucks by joining at the rally). I’ll be there to see some friends and spend a pleasant afternoon at Anchor. Stop by and say hello.