Brookston Beer Bulletin

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Redbridge Gluten-Free Released Nationally

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As expected, Anheuser-Busch released Redbridge, a gluten-free beer made with sorghum nationally last week. As with their organic beers, A-B claims they will be making regular donations to a relevant charity, in this case to National Foundation for Celia Awareness, undoubtedly a worthy organization. The Redbridge website is also up and running now, too.

Here’s a portion of the press release:

Sorghum, the primary ingredient in Redbridge, is a safe grain for those allergic to wheat or gluten. It is grown in the United States, Africa, Southern Europe, Central America and Southern Asia. Sorghum beers have been available internationally for years and are popular in many African countries.

Redbridge is a hearty, full-bodied lager brewed using imported Hallertau and domestic Cascade hops. It is brewed with sorghum and has a well-balanced, moderately hopped taste. “We set out to create a fine, hand-crafted specialty beer made without wheat or barley,” said Angie Minges, product manager, Anheuser-Busch. “We’ve made Redbridge nationally available to make sure adults who experience wheat allergies or who choose a gluten-free or wheat-free diet can enjoy the kind of beer that fits their lifestyle.”

Redbridge contains 4.8% alcohol per 12-ounce serving. It will be available in 12-ounce, six-pack bottles. Redbridge is brewed at the Anheuser-Busch Merrimack, N.H., brewery.

The new six-packs for Redbridge, now available nationally.

Editorial Nonsense from San Antonio

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My friend and colleague Lisa Morrison sent me a link this morning to an editorial from San Antonio, Texas (on MySanAntonio.com, a partnership between the newspaper San Antonio Express-News and the television station KENS 5) that had gotten her worked up before her morning coffee. But after taking a look at it myself, I understand her frustration. It’s enough to turn your hair red. The editorial is so ridiculous the author didn’t even sign their name to it, presumably they’re too embarrassed to forever link themselves to such blather. The entire argument, if you can even call it that, can be summed up neatly by the title, “TV + beer = round bodies.”

It’s mercifully short, at least, so go ahead a take a look for yourself. The entirety of their support for the argument that drinking beer and watching too much TV is responsible for the country’s obesity problem stems from three data points from an abstract released by the U.S. Census Bureau last week by way of a Reuters article. The first is that “two-thirds of Americans are overweight, including one-third of whom are obese.” Next is that “Americans will spend an average of nearly 4 1/2 hours daily in front of the television” (although the editorial says 10 hours, including “reading books and surfing the Internet” but leaves out the other Census data about listening to the radio, “listening to recorded music,” along with “reading newspapers, playing video games and reading other media.”). Lastly, we drink a half gallon of beer each week on average — I know I’m doing my part. So the editorial takes those pieces of Census data and believes they have the proof that “[b]eer and television lead to big bellies.” And not only does this constitute proof in the mind of the article’s anonymous author, but they also believe that their reasoning is “common sense.”

Here’s some more brilliant analysis:

The bureau does not interpret the data; it merely presents it, but it does not take a social scientist to see that there may be a connection between obesity and beer drinking and television viewing.

If people spent less time watching television and drinking beer, we might see a more encouraging figure when the bureau does its next abstract — a decrease in the amount of overweight Americans.

What the author fails to mention is the figures cited by Reuters come from a “1,300-page book of tables and statistics” that includes 1,376 separate tables of data. To cherry pick three of them and claim to prove a correlation between them is ludicrous.

Other data includes “Per capita consumption of corn sweeteners, including high-fructose syrup, totaled 78.1 pounds in the United States in 2004, up from 35.3 pounds in 1980 but on a downward trend from 81.8 pounds consumed in 2000.” But I’m sure all that sugar had nothing to do with obesity trends. It has to be the beer. That’s just common sense, right?

As Lisa put it:

I cannot believe this editorial actually targets beer consumption (and nothing else except watching TV) for the increased weight of Americans. Like eating too much food or drinking sugary sodas or even sipping too much of the Blessed Red Wine (caps intended) wouldn’t contribute to the creeping numbers on the scale …

There are obviously so many factors that lead to obesity that to simplify it as being caused by beer and television is more than a bit insulting. Not only do many other drinks — both alcoholic and non-alcoholic — also pack on the pounds but snack foods and other empty-calorie eats do at least as much to increase weight gain for sedentary people.

I can’t help but wonder who wrote the editorial and what their real motives or agenda were? Do I smell neo-prohibitionists trying to connect dots that aren’t there? Or merely some misguided journalist with a deadline and not much time to think about what he or she is writing?

Paging Doctor Obvious

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health
My friend, Stan, over at Beer Therapy already mentioned this New York Times article yesterday, but I wanted to add my two cents, though knowing me it will be more like three or four cents.

The Times’ piece is about a recent M.I.T. graduate student’s paper “Try It, You’ll Like It: The Influence of Expectation, Consumption and Revelation on Preferences for Beer,” which will be published in this month’s Psychological Sciences, a scientific journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Leonard Lee, who has now received his PhD and is teaching at Columbia, along with research assistants Shane Frederick and Dan Ariely, conducted experiments in which they sought to discover whether tasting beer blind or knowing something about the beer changes people’s perceptions of it.

From the Times article:

[The researchers] found that they could change beer drinkers’ taste preferences by telling them about a secret ingredient in a beer before they drank it.

In previous studies, psychologists had found that putting brand labels on containers of beer, soft drinks and other products tended to enhance people’s subjective ratings of quality. But the new experiment demonstrates that this preference involves more than simple brand loyalty. It changes the experience of taste itself.

“It’s a clean demonstration that what we think is going into our mouth actually changes what we taste, down to the level of the taste buds themselves,” said Michael Norton, an assistant professor of business administration in the marketing department of the Harvard Business School who did not take part in the research.

To which my initial reaction is simply, “duh!” Having been tasting beer both openly and blind for many years, it’s only too obvious that knowing what the beer is or even knowing something about it changes your reaction to it. Not to throw vinegar in this “research,” but did they expect a different result than what experience and indeed common sense would have predicted? I say vinegar, because that’s what the researchers used when giving subjects two beers, one normal and one laced with a small amount of balsamic vinegar. When tasters didn’t know which one had the vinegar, 60% chose the modified beer as their favorite. But when they were told in advance which one had vinegar in it, that number dropped almost in half, to around 33%.

Dr. Lee said that the study showed that the experience of taste involved not only the sensation of a blend of ingredients, but also the “top-down” influence of expectations. Previous research with brain imaging had shown that expectations could change the trace of activity of people’s brains when tasting drinks.

Having experienced this phenomenon first-hand both in myself and others, it just seems incredibly self-evident. I would have been truly shocked to learn the opposite was true, because who wouldn’t think that objectivity is compromised or at least altered by knowing something about what we’re tasting? Why do you think we evaluate beer by tasting it blind, for chrissakes? For competitions in which beer is critically judged, it is always, always, always done blind precisely in an effort to remove as much prejudice from the process as possible, so I don’t see what this study is telling us that we don’t already know. And not just kind of, sort of know, but for which we have centuries of experience so that we really know. This knowledge forms the basis for how we judge beer and indeed probably how everything involving the ephemeral qualities of taste is judged in an effort to be as objective as humanly possible.

So maybe I’m being my usual curmudgeonly self here, but despite Dr. Lee’s protestations to the contrary, it seems to me he did get M.I.T. to foot his bar bill. I don’t see how his findings tell us anything new. I know it made the papers because it’s unusual for beer to be the subject of “serious” research at any level. If this same study had been done using juice or water or almost anything non-alcoholic we would likely never have heard about it. There are fifteen articles in the same issue of the Psychological Sciences Journal, yet this is the only one meriting a mention in the New York Times. Why didn’t “Sex Differences in Intellectual Performance: Analysis of a Large Cohort of Competitive Chess Players” or “The Neglect of Musicians: Line Bisection Reveals an Opposite Bias” get any ink? They both sound interesting to me.

But, okay, I’ll climb down off of my tall equestrian mount. While I’m certainly glad to keep seeing more and more attention paid to beer by the media these days, I continue to be cynical and more than a little suspicious of the motives for its content. Maybe it’s me who needs the psychological evaluation? What do you think?

drink-no-evil

No. 10 With a Bullet

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I get a lot of e-mails on a regular basis from PR firms pitching one story or another for their clients. Many times they don’t even have anything to do with beer because most firms don’t have a separate category and just lump all beverages, and usually food, together in one category. Today I got one that at first glance seemed destined for the delete key, though it was more interesting than most of the ones I get.

It was titled the “Ten Trends to Watch in Packaged Goods in 2007” and was complied by the market research company Datamonitor. Of the first nine, a few of their predictions could have some relevance to craft beer, but more likely to fringe malt beverages or other kinds of drinks. Those categories are Calorie Burning Beverages, Satiety-Enhancing Foods & Drinks, Local Sourcing of Ingredients, and Immunity Boosting Foods & Drinks.

Number 10, on the other hand, was “Better for You” Beer – Blame it on the “French Paradox.” Here it is in its entirety:

With beer losing ground to wine in many markets around the world, beer makers are beginning to fight back with new products promising new health benefits for beer. Stampede Light is claimed to be the “first ever government approved vitamin beer” for the USA market with its B-vitamins, folic acid and folate. In Germany, Karlesberg Braueri is out with a pair of new functional beers aimed at women. Karla Well-B, for instance, is made with lecithin, folic acid and other vitamins. Karla Balance mixes hops with lemon balm. Both products have just 1% alcohol by volume. Beer may never be the same.

That’s not one of the trends in beer I would have predicted needed watching, but then I don’t have the research apparently Datamonitor does. But I already have prima facie questions about it. Their initial justification is that “beer [is] losing ground to wine in many markets around the world.” But I haven’t seen anything more than polls that only anecdotally support that, and even some of that data doesn’t support that conclusion. Sales of beer are still many times wine (4 to 1 in the U.S.) so how true is that assertion?

I have no problem with the health benefits of beer being touted in beer marketing and advertising. Craft beer without any additives at all has many proven and theoretical health benefits. That the TTB doesn’t permit beer companies to make those claims because it might promote drinking is puritanical nonsense that has no place in a free society. Beer with health additives seem like novelties to me, however sincere their makers may be. Many I’ve tried taste just fine to me, but there appeal seems largely aimed at persons for whom the particular claim of each one resonates in some particular way for that customer. In other words, their appeal is more limited. They are, after all, niche products by definition and many are sub-niches of broader categories like health food products or organics.

So I just don’t see these as trends worthy of our constant attention next year. Far more likely trends to watch, I think, will be organic beers and gluten-free, but only time will tell. What do you think? What will be the hot new trends in beer next year?

Health Claims for Beer Forbidden in Canada

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There was an interesting rant in today’s Canada Free Press by a Dr. W. Gifford Jones who was incensed about a Canadian brewer who was told he could not inform his customers about any health claims about his beer whatsoever under Canadian law. Dr. Jones used that incident as a jumping off place to question the hypocrisy in this aspect of Canadian society, which undoubtedly parallels that of the U.S., at least with respect to this issue.

U.K. Shows Perspective in Rejecting Increasing Beer Tax

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Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary for the U.K.’s Department of Health, during an interview Friday in youth newspaper First News told them that she would ask the British government to increase the tax on alcohol, and especially alcopops, as a way of combating underage binge drinking. And not just increase them, but “really increase taxes on alcohol.”

The Treasury Department quickly rejected her call for the increase, suggesting that it was her job to combat binge drinking and raising taxes on all alcohol would “punish responsible drinkers in an attempt to change the behaviour of a small minority.” Amen.

And according to the Daily Express, another “Treasury source said the idea was misguided because the main consumers of alcopops were no longer youngsters, while the move also risked driving whisky producers out of business.”

Now if only our government could find its spine to stand up to the neo-prohibitionist agenda in similar fashion. Ah, dare to dream …

Tastes Great, Less Gesundheit

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Add hay fever to the growing list of maladies that can be helped by the moderate drinking of beer. A new preliminary study released today by Tadao Enomoto at the Japanese Red Cross Society’s medical center in Japan’s Wakayama Prefecture appears to show marked relief in alleviating sneezing and running noses for hay fever sufferers from a flavonol compound in hops. They study’s full findings will be presented next month to the Palynological Society of Japan.

Japanese brewer Sapporo, who co-sponsored the research, has filed for a patent on the process of extracting the hay fever-fighting flavonol, which involves pulverizing the hops and then soaking them in water. By next spring — before the next hay fever season — Sapporo plans to release a new beer containing the isolated hop flavonol that combats hay fever.

Five Reasons to Keep Drinking Beer

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The Metro, San Jose’s alternative weekly might not be exactly mainstream, but when I lived in the area the years ago, it was a pretty good paper. This week’s edition features a short little column listing five recently discovered health benefits associated with drinking alcohol in moderation. These included a healthier heart, lungs, bone density, help in fighting cholesterol, and reducing the risk of a stroke.

Beer Only Fit for Guzzling

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I realize that the Ventura County Reporter isn’t exactly mainstream media, but they’re in print and people believe what they read in print, so they’re fair game as far as I’m concerned, especially when they wear their ignorance on their sleeve. A regular column in the alternative weekly, called Body Politics, is written by Robert Ferguson, who apparently is a diet guru, at least according his byline, which reads:

Robert Ferguson is recognized as the weight loss “guru” and wellness expert, co-author of Fat That Doesn’t Come Back, speaker and has Diet Free Life offices in Southern California. E-mail him at robert@dietfreelife.com, or visit his Web site at www.dietfreelife.com.

Apparently in his column each week he answers questions sent in by readers. This week’s is particularly troubling. The question is innocuous enough, here it is:

You often talk about the benefits of drinking wine, but what about beer?

— Cia W., Thousand Oaks

Okay, Bobby, you got my attention, please tell me. What are the benefits of drinking beer? He brings up only one of the numerous studies showing health benefit for moderate beer drinking, this about “men who drank 11-24 pints” having a 66% reduced chance of getting a heart attack over teetotalers who drank none at all. All well and good, but he also says that the scientists conducting the study were “shocked” by the findings. Hardly. It’s not like the health benefits of beer is a new phenomenon. People have known beer is good for them for millennia and there were centuries when it was preferable to water, health-wise. But it shows his true disdain for beer while at the same time trying to appear unbiased.

Ignoring the many other and different ways beer provides health benefits, he then suggests that “[j]ust because there is a hint [my emphasis] of health associated with beer doesn’t mean it’s to your benefit to rush out and purchase a case of your favorite flavor.” Setting aside that beer doesn’t really come in “flavors,” but styles, just because he apparently knows only about a single study doesn’t mean there’s only a hint of benefits. A simple Google search of “health benefits of beer” would have revealed to him over 9 million hits! Even if only a tiny fraction were legitimate scientific studies, that would still be many more than one. Just in the last few years, there have been many new major findings on the health benefits of beer. But why use facts, when as a “guru” you can pretend to know what you’re talking about.

But Bobby’s not done insulting beer yet, as he ends with this bit of wisdom:

The challenge with beer is that it’s not usually sipped, but guzzled. And guzzling positions you to consume more than if you were to sip it.

Now here was a perfect opportunity to educate Cia and his readers that there are thousands of great beers designed to be sipped rather than knocked back. But instead Bobo, who appears to know precious little about beer, chose instead to recommend the following:

If you want weight loss however, choose a five-ounce glass of wine instead.

Dammit this is the sort of thing that if I were a cartoon would make smoke shoot out of my ears. Why does wine always get trotted out as this saintly stuff, perfect for a diet? Ferguson cautioned earlier in the article that beer had “alcohol and calories,” making it bad for dieting, apparently. But so does wine. And ounce for ounce wine has more calories than beer does. There’s 100 calories in five ounces of wine, while a similar amount of beer contains (depending on the amount of protein) between 50-75 calories which is — say it with me — less. Why couldn’t he have suggested that Cia share a nice bottle of Cuvee de Tomme (Ventura is in Southern California, after all) with some friends, having only five ounces herself in a nice tulip glass? She was asking about beer, after all, not wine. But talk of alcohol and health always seems to work its way back to grapes, despite the mounting evidence of beer’s positive benefits in a myriad of areas. This perception of wine as angelically good and beer as demonically bad is one tough nut to crack. People seem very, very attached to this misconception. We could debate the reasons for this and where the culpability lies, but that’s for another day. The fact is our cause it not helped by so-called experts like this guy who in his zeal to sell diet books, magazines and his online weight loss program, ignores the facts and plays on old stereotypes to misinform the public.
 

Robert Ferguson, the “Diet Guru.” “Remember kids, don’t guzzle that beer, you’ll get fat.“

Ordering Alcohol Online: More Deceptive Shenanigans

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A few months ago, the NBWA in response to an odd query from the Surgeon General tried to blame underage drinking on the Internet in an effort to both seem caring and also continue to fight interstate alcohol shipping as the bogeyman for the 21st Century. To any trade organization who represents monopoly interests, of course, any hint of legislative change that threatens that control will be a bogeyman. In March it was beer distributors, now it’s wine wholesalers in the form of the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA) who are attempting to further their own agenda with misleading information, at best, and downright falsehoods, at worst.

They’ve released a study that they sponsored that concluded exactly what they wanted it to. How convenient. How manipulative. Of course they call the survey a “landmark.” I call it what it really is: bullshit. Before you dismiss my assessment out of hand, read John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton’s wonderful books Toxic Sludge is Good For You! and Trust Us, We’re Experts! Both go a long way toward explaining how seemingly scientific and unbiased studies are in reality propaganda created by a very sophisticated public relations industry.

The WSWA, like the NBWA, has one function, and one function only. And it isn’t trumped up concerns about our nation’s youth. It’s sole purpose is to advance the agenda of wine wholesalers and distributors. Almost all of these wholesalers enjoy very profitable monopolies that are threatened by direct sales over the Internet. So that’s the bogeyman. It will corrupt our children. It’s always about the children. It’s never about money or business. My child needs their protection. Hooray. I no longer have to worry because the WSWA is on the case. It’s easy, really. All they have to do is make up some statistics and scare parents who are too busy to think for themselves.

Look at the language they employ. The study “confirmed” findings, it didn’t come to any conclusions based on raw data. Instead it went looking to “confirm” that which supported a predetermined conclusion. Let’s examine their so-called conclusions:

  1. 3.1 million minors (12%) ages 14-20 report having a friend who has ordered alcohol online.

    2. Wow, they have a friend. And that friend has a friend, and so on. That’s how urban legends begin … I have a friend who has a friend and …. This is a statistic that says absolutely nothing. First of all, even if accurate there’s no way to know if these 3.1 million friends are all different or all the same. Perhaps there’s only one guy but everybody knows him. That’s just as plausible as trying to conclude 12% of minors are buying alcohol online. Sure, they don’t come out and say that, but that’s clearly the inference.

  2. Two percent (551,000) of those ages 14-20 say they personally have bought alcohol online.

    3. Since when did 2% of anything become significant. Again, let’s assume that the number is correct and no bragging occurred on the part of those surveyed. Should we restrict adult’s access to legal products because some small percentage of the population will abuse them? How does that number compare to other methods minors use to get alcohol? I’m willing to bet fake IDs and over-21 friends far exceed that number. Can we really stop 100% of minors getting their hands on alcohol? Should we even try? Because every barrier we put up also makes it more it more difficult for adults, too. Kids are kids. They’ll try to do whatever they can to grow up too quickly. I did it. You did it. We’re not going to stop human nature. The more we prohibit something, the more attractive it becomes. So what if these kids bought alcohol online. It’s not the Internet’s fault. It’s the same argument the gun lobby uses so effectively. Guns don’t kill people, people do. The Internet is just a vehicle. You don’t restrict access to it for everyone because a few abuse it. Besides, where were these kids parents? What’s their story? Without that information, raw numbers are meaningless.

  3. As exposure and awareness of buying alcohol online increase, even more minors can be expected to purchase wine, beer and liquor online. This is consistent with a 2003 National Academy of Sciences report which confirmed kids are buying alcohol online and that increasing use of the Internet will make this problem worse in the future.

    4. Again, this is not a fact but a flimsy extrapolation based on questionable (and uncited) information.

  4. Nearly one in 10 (9%) of those ages 14-20 have visited a site that sells alcohol.

    5. So what? It’s not illegal for minors to read about alcohol, is it? Minors are allowed in grocery stores that sell alcohol without being corrupted. What’s the difference? And it’s curious that while 9% have visited an alcohol website, 12% have a friend who’ve bought online, while only 2% have actually done so. Is it just me, or do those figures not quite add up.

  5. One-third – nearly 8.9 million ages 14-20 nationwide – are open to the possibility of an online alcohol purchase before age 21.

    6. When I was 14-20, I would have been open to it, too. When this generation of 14-20-years olds are my age, the next crop of 14-20-year olds will almost certainly also be open to it. So what? It’s meaningless hyperbole.

  6. Seventy-five percent say their parents aren’t able to control what they do on the Internet.

    7. Is that a failure of the internet or parents? We have to realize as a society that we can’t protect our kids from everything. We have to raise them to deal with things on their own. Parents can’t really control their kids at school, either, but nobody’s suggesting we should do away with the public school system and home school everybody.

  7. Among those ages 14-20 who have tried alcohol, 75% tried liquor, followed by wine at 64%, beer at 60% and wine coolers at 55%.

    8. Another head scratcher. I’m not even sure what this adds to the picture. I’m not sure why it’s included here.

Happily, I’m not the only one who thinks this false concern for children is anything but a thinly veiled attempt to maintain the status quo. A grassroots organization known as Free the Grapes has released a counter-statement also calling into question the tactics of the WSWA.

Here’s the bulk of their statement, which was titled “Majority of States Allow Regulated Wine Direct Shipping, But Wine Wholesalers Continue ‘Chicken Little’ Strategy“:

The wine wholesaler cartel today trotted out a tired argument already dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Federal Trade Commission, and state alcohol regulators.

The intent of the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America’s “survey” on underage access is to deflect attention from their real motivation: economic protectionism. Over the past 30 years, the wholesale cartel has consolidated from 11,000 wholesalers to an oligopoly of two or three per state. The wholesalers, not consumers, have been deciding which wines are available. But now, the courts, Federal Trade Commission, and state legislatures are supporting consumer choice and responding with reasonable regulations and controls.

While the WSWA’s press release quoted that the “survey” results showed a “dangerous trend,” USA TODAY was unconvinced. The newspaper reported yesterday that “It’s unclear how many teens were buying alcohol online before the court’s ruling, but the TRU survey suggests such purchases are rare.”

Here are the facts:

  • Fact: Thirty-three states now allow interstate, winery-to-consumer direct shipments, and several more are in the process of creating the legal mechanisms to do so. No state has ever repealed pro direct shipping legislation based on non-compliance, including underage access. See www.wineinstitute.org for a list of the state laws.
  • Fact: The Federal Trade Commission rebuked the underage access argument in its survey of alcohol regulators in 11 states that allow direct shipments, concluding that states with procedural safeguards against shipments to minors report “few or no problems.” Click the following link to read a summary of the FTC’s July 2003 study, “Possible Anticompetitive Barriers to E-commerce: Wine”: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2003/07/wine.htm
  • Fact: The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling in Granholm v. Heald dismissed the underage access red herring, and favored a level playing field and consumer choice in wine via wineries and retailers
  • Fact: The wine industry supports the enforcement mechanisms available to states in the event of an alleged illegal shipment. The “21st Amendment Enforcement Act” was supported by the WSWA and signed into law in October 2000, allowing state Attorneys General to access federal courts to pursue litigation for alleged violations of state law regulating alcohol shipping. No winery or retailer has ever been prosecuted under the 21st Amendment Enforcement Act.

Additionally, alleged violations of state laws governing alcohol shipments can be reported by any state to the Trade & Tax Bureau for investigation. Penalties for infractions can include revocation of a winery’s basic permit to produce wine. Finally, the wine industry’s model direct shipping bill for wine stipulates that the winery or retailer holding a direct shipping license has consented to the jurisdiction of the state issuing the license, and the state’s courts concerning enforcement of the law. A copy of the model bill is located at www.freethegrapes.org.

“Especially now that the courts and capitols support consumer choice in wine, and many more enforcement tools are available, states should be working to ensure that online sellers are complying with all laws,” said Jeremy Benson, executive director, Free the Grapes! “Common sense and the actual experience of state regulators demonstrate that direct shipping is not the common means for illegal youth access to purchase wine, beer or spirits. Underage access is a serious issue, but it won’t be solved by special interest surveys geared to protect their turf by targeting a legal sales channel for adults,” he added.

The Wine Institute also posted a statement questioning the WSWA’s press release and survey findings.

The Wine and Spirits Wholesalers also have another website up called Point. Click. Drink. that is even more egregiously misleading than it’s main website — if you can believe that — which purports to educate young people. Unfortuntately it’s riddled with misinformation and outright fabrications, especially the Fact vs. Fiction section, which is almost entirely creative fiction. I considered going over their so-called facts point by point, but Free the Grapes put up their own counter to it: Point,Click, Think! There’s some great information there. For example, there’s this gem from USA Today, who wasn’t rolling over like NBC as far back as 1999, when they wrote:

“The [wholesaler] industry’s tactics are a civics lesson in how scare stories, lobbying and political money can be used to limit consumer choice through special-interest protections.”

— USA TODAY editorial, July 7, 1999

The WSWA even got NBC to bite on their press release and spread some nonsensical fears in a story entitled “Who is minding the Internet liquor store?” It’s by “Chief consumer correspondent” — whatever that means — Lea Thompson and it tells the tale of some kids who bought a bottle of absinthe online after watching the movie Eurotrip. Like much on the evening news, it spreads fear and highlights breakdowns in security all along the process. But it concludes, of course, by accepting the WSWA survey without question even dismissing the fact that the survey was commissioned by the WSWA by saying simply that “clearly there is a problem.” Not once is it suggested that the problem is with the security systems or other places the process breaks down. It was too easy to order online and the delivery company just gave the alcohol to a fifteen-year old. It didn’t occur to them to examine the breakdown in protocol by the delivery service. They got a free pass. NBC didn’t even mention it as a part of the problem. Yikes. Now that’s hard-hitting journalism.

But even the FTC examined E-commerce and concluded that online alcohol sales “Lowers Prices, Increases Choices in Wine Market.” The report, which was approved 5-0, refutes much, if not all, of the WSWA and NBWA’s ridiculous assertions that not banning the sales of alcohol online will lead to an epidemic of underage drinking. This time around the accusations were leveled by the wine wholesalers but much of it applies similarly to the beer industry. With so much money at stake, this issue isn’t going away anytime soon. The monopolies that constitute our alcohol distributors and wholesalers will defend those monopolies by any means necessary. Sometimes maintaining the status quo does make sense, as it does in certain aspects of the three-tier system, but other times it is clearly bad for consumers. This is one of those times. Direct shipping of alcohol from manufacturers or retailers interstate and intrastate should be legal in every state. That it’s not already shows how powerful the lobbying arms of alcohol distributors and wholesalers really are and how effective propaganda can be.