You know the tide must be finally turning when Time magazine does a long, thorough article on the issues surrounding the drinking age and it’s virtually void of neo-prohibitionist propaganda. I imagine the anti-alcohol lobby must be beside themselves. It’s tempting to believe that the tide may finally be turning against their all-or-nothing approach, but I doubt that. Of course, I can have a dream, too, can’t I? My favorite big galoot, and good friend, Lew Bryson suggested spreading it around on his blog, Seen Through A Glass, and, after reading it, I heartily agree. See what you think.

The first thing you notice about the logo for Seattle’s Brouwer’s Cafe is how cool it is. It’s the rampant lion from Belgium’s coat of arms, The Leo Belgicus, but with the colors’ reversed; black on gold instead of gold on black. And if you think it might make a great tattoo, you’re not alone. On Sunday, May 18, they hosted an Employee Appreciation Day for their three-dozen or so staff. Co-owner Matt Bonney invited his friend, and renowned Tattoo Artist with Seattle’s Anchor Tattoo, John Howel, to the party. He also offered to pay for any Brouwer’s lion tattoo that any of his employees might be interested on getting, figuring at most perhaps a handful would take him up on the offer. But he was wrong, and his employees were far more loyal than even he imagined. Howel began doing Brouwer’s tattoos at eleven in the morning and didn’t finish until just after midnight, doing a total of twelve tattoos in all on employees and friends of the Belgian cafe.

Pastry chef David Albright was among those who went under the needle.

The results on Director of Brewing Operations at Skagit River Brewing, Mike Armstrong’s chest.

For more photos from the Brouwer’s tattoo session, visit the photo gallery.
 

It’s nice to get some good news for a change. I got an e-mail this morning from Mike Altman, owner of Iron Springs Pub & Brewery in Fairfax, California. You may recall that their landlord was trying to raise their rent by 53%, an unreasonable amount in this economy that would have closed down the brewery on August 15, which is when the current lease runs out. There was a scheduled arbitration, but no one was expecting much from it, given the seemingly intractable position of the landlords. But a more modest amount was agreed upon and I’m happy to report that Iron Springs will remain open after August 15, and most likely for at least the next five years. The Marin IJ has the story in today’s paper. According to the article, the Fairfax Town Council also honored Iron Springs on Wednesday, declaring them “one of the town’s top 10 businesses.” Way to go Mike and Anne, that’s fantastic news!

If, like me, you’re of a philosophical bent, you might enjoy this intriguing essay I came across on a Libertarian blog, Positive Liberty. It’s titled The Metaphor of Beer, though I think the metaphor really is about the brewing process rather than the end product. For a civilian, the author has a pretty good grasp on brewing history and how the process works. After detailing these, he then makes the leap that brewing makes a very good metaphor for politics and specifically about how governments work.

But might the rules for a good society be like the rules of making beer? That is, might they be amazingly complex and never knowable in their entirety, but still reducible — at times — to simple rules, and, at other times, to more complex ones?

As I said, it’s an intriguing idea, and one well worth contemplating, especially during an election year.

The following action alert has been issued by the California Small Brewers Association through the Support Your Local Brewery consumer beer activist network, in the hopes of generating grassroots support from beer lovers in California. Please help if you can.

Dear Beer Activist,

The craft brewers of California need your help!

A bill sponsored by Anheuser-Busch, AB 1245 (Torrico) is being heard in committee this Tuesday, June 24th. This bill would significantly expand the limits on what a brewer can give away to a retailer. Currently, a brewer can only give away small items of minimal value to a retailer or consumer. The law in place now helps create an equal playing field for both small and large breweries. This law has helped the craft brewing industry flourish in California.

Anheuser-Busch wants to increase the limit 1,600% so they can use give-ways as an inducement to gain placements at stores, bars and restaurants. Craft brewers – because we are small, independent businesses which brew with passion and typically do not have large marketing budgets – cannot afford to compete with the big brewers on this level. Passing this bill will allow large corporate brewers to “buy” placements at craft beers expense.

You may thinking to yourself, but don’t I want breweries to give me free stuff? That’s a reasonable initial reaction, but think about it this way. Most of the craft breweries that make the beer you love can’t afford to give away anything and that hasn’t stopped you from buying their beer. You prefer their beer because it tastes good. You didn’t need a free keychain or some other bauble to convince you that their beer is good. So it begs the question, what sort of beer company does need to give away free crap, in effect buying market share instead of earning it? It’s probably the sort of beer that you don’t want to drink in the first place. But by allowing this bill to pass, those beer companies will be able to buy more and more customer loyalty, and that will be mean less and less good beer for you and your friends. So while it may seem counter-intuitive to tell your Senator not to allow you to potentially receive more free stuff, it’s that fact which will make your message that much more powerful. Tell your elected representative that you’d rather support and buy beer from small, local craft beer companies that make the beer you love, than be given free crap by companies whose products are in many cases not made locally and do not support California’s economy or small business community.

The action alert continues:

The craft brewers of California will be at a distinct disadvantage if this bill passes, therefore limiting the choice and availability of craft beers in the marketplace.

There are five Senators who have indicated they haven’t made up their minds and could end up voting against our local breweries. They are:
 

• Senator Wiggins (Mendocino, Humboldt parts of Sonoma County)
• Senator Harman (Huntington Beach area)
• Senator Denham (Central valley Modesto area)
• Senator Yee (parts of San Francisco County)
• Senator Wyland (parts of San Diego County)

 
If you are in one of these areas, we need your help. Please read on. If you are not sure who your Senator is, you can easily and quickly find out here.

If you are in the district of one of the five Senators above, please write a letter to fax or email; or call your Senators office no later than Monday, June 23rd.

Let your Senator know that you are opposed to AB 1245 and that this bill is anti-small business and against the best interests of the craft brewers in California.
 

• Senator Wiggins phone 916.651.4002 / fax 916.323.6958 / e-mail
• Senator Harman phone 916.651.4035 / fax 916.445.9263 / email
• Senator Denhamphone 916.651.4012 / fax 916.445.0773 / email
• Senator Yee phone 916.651.4008 / fax 916.327.2186 / email
• Senator Wyland phone 916.651.4038 / fax 916.446.7382 / email

 
Thanks for supporting your local brewery!

The California Small Brewers Association

Send questions to Tom McCormick.

I finally had a chance to visit Dean Biersch’s new brewpub in Sebastopol, the Hopmonk Tavern. My good friend, Pete Slosberg, invited me to join him to hear Tony Magee, the owner of Lagunitas Brewing, perform there last night, and we met some other friends from Lagunitas for a nice dinner and blues music. The Hopmonk is beautiful and, as expected, Biersch remade the space with a wonderful attention to detail. The new beer garden, the biggest departure from its earlier configuration as Powerhouse Brewing, is the most comfortable new feature. The food was terrific, as was the unfiltered pilsner. Their beer list is quite impressive, too.
 

Outside the new Hopmonk Tavern in Sebastopol, California.

My good friend Tony Magee warms up for his set of blues music.

For more photos from the Hopmonk Tavern, visit the photo gallery.
 

Nothing about the recent assault on beer by neo-prohibitionists trying to tax Alcopops (FMBs officially) has made any sense or followed any discernible logic. There’s an end the proponents of raising the tax are trying to achieve, which is purportedly to make Alcopops too expensive for minors to buy. Of course, raising the price will do no such thing, but I suspect they already know that. That they’ve been able to dupe California state agencies into going along with their half-baked scheme suggests no one has thought much about the true consequences of what they’re doing. They’re just keeping their eye on the prize, and the consequences be damned. I imagine all the BOE had to be told was “it’s for the children” and they fell lockstep in line with the neo-prohibitionist agenda. Nobody wants to be against the children, and apparently those are the only two choices available to people of limited mental faculties.

Then, of course, there’s the tax angle. California spun itself into financial troubles several years ago, helped along by Enron’s greed, and it hasn’t recovered yet, not even with the Governator in the role of savior. Social services have been slashed, of course, and lots of little things have been raised, like DMV fees and the like. But it’s still not enough. Lots of people have suggested it’s the fault of beer, not wine or spirits mind you, but beer, because it’s not taxed at a high enough rate. I won’t argue where the tax rate for beer should be, but currently our rate is low compared to the rest of the states, but I’ll also mention that we have more breweries than any other state, which adds a considerable amount to our state economy already.

What I will say, is that the idea that beer drinkers should have to pay for our state’s fiscal irresponsibility is so ridiculous that I’m amazed the argument can be made with a straight face. But that’s what many have proposed, in effect, and today the Sacramento Bee weighed in with their own absurd idea, that goes like this: “Psst! Hey, legislators — looking for some fast cash to ease the budget crisis? Think booze.” The faulty logic, downright incorrect statements and tortured reasoning are in virtually every sentence. It’s as if up really were down in the Bee’s worldview.

Prodded by kids not yet old enough to drink legally, the California Board of Equalization just announced a plan to boost the tax on “alcopops,” those soda pop-tasting alcoholic beverages popular with young drinkers. The increase approved, if it survives a court challenge, will dump an extra $41 million into state coffers.

The plan is not to tax just alcopops, but all beer, unless every brewer files the correct mountain of paperwork for each and every beer they produce, in effect proving to the state that it really is beer and not an FMB. You can see for yourself at the BOE website.

Because flavored malt beverages — products such as Mike’s Hard Lemonade and Smirnoff Ice — contain trace amounts of distilled spirits used as flavoring agents, proponents of the tax hike argued they should be treated like distilled spirits for tax purposes.

FMBs do NOT have any alcoholic spirits in them whatsoever. The “trace amounts of distilled spirits used as flavoring agents” are non-alcoholic chemical compounds taken from the spirits. That’s the whole point of them, they have no distilled spirits in them! They are a beer brewed with barley and corn (or some other combination of grains), and instead of hops the chemical flavoring is added that simulates a taste only marginally similar to the spirit it’s based on. That was done by design specifically so they wouldn’t be taxed as a spirit, but as a beer. But apparently people unfamiliar with how the process works, see the word “distillate” and believe it makes sense to consider them 100% spirits, despite containing, at best, 0.001% non-alcoholic chemicals that came from a distilling process. Even non-alcoholic beer is, by law, 0.5% or less alcohol by volume. So this is just finding a convenient excuse to further an agenda.

But it’s not the alcohol content that makes the product so problematic. It’s alcopops’ appeal to underage drinkers. A beverage that tastes like soda but contains the same alcohol content as beer appeals to children in obviously dangerous ways. The higher tax reflects the very real social risk alcopops pose.

So it’s not the alcohol, eh? It’s simply that it’s sweet and kids with undeveloped palates might like it. Even if that’s true, where did they get such a sweet tooth? Soda is far worse for everybody’s health than beer ever will be, yet we give that to children without any reservations. There are soda machines in school classrooms, for chrissakes. But the real problem with this logic is that just because something might appeal to the people it’s not intended for — minors — it should be punished with higher taxes and be more expensive for adults to buy, too. It’s already illegal for kids to buy, but since we can’t seem to stop them from getting their hands on it, let’s punish adult society generally and the people that make a living from it and already make a positive impact on the economy specifically. That only makes sense if your true aim is not what you state it to be.

The Marin Institute, an alcohol industry watch group, estimates that raising taxes on all alcoholic beverages just 25 cents per drink would raise $3 billion. That’s money the state desperately needs from an industry that has not paid its fair share for a long, long time.

As a colleague of mine put it, “saying the Marin Institute is “an alcohol industry watch group” is like saying the Taliban is a cultural and morality watch group.” The Marin Institute is nothing so grand. They are quite simply a neo-prohibitionist group who wants to return to a time when all alcohol is illegal and they will use any means necessary to achieve that goal. But that aside, saying that taxes should be raised because “the state desperately needs” it is not a valid reason. It may be a result, but what kind of world would we have if every time we needed money, our government looked around for somebody they didn’t like and decided to target them for higher taxes. That’s not a world I’d want to live in. That’s certainly not the high-minded ideals we should be aspiring to.

The truth is, I’m no fan of alcopops, but because I don’t like the taste of them. I find them too sweet and simple, and I dislike them in the same way I hate soda. They have no complex flavor profiles, they don’t really pair with food very well, and they more than likely rob craft brewers of sales, possibly even delaying a new consumer becoming a fan of good beer. But I hate these anti-alcohol attacks even more, especially when they so indiscriminately target beer in their machinations.

Where the taxes on any good or product made should be a policy decision based on a variety of factors, none of which should include manufactured hysteria, the agenda of a misinformed and misguided minority, or an opinion based on a lack of truthiness by a second-rate newspaper.