On this episode, Paul Leone, John Pinkerton, and David Little debate the restrictions put on Alcohol By Volume in some states . The laws behind limiting ABV make no sense in this day and age – so what do you think?
Check out this video from YouTube that was sent to us. It’s unbelievable!
16 Responses
State ABV laws and their effect on craft brewers and craft beer enthusiasts is an interesting topic that I really haven’t thought very much about until you brought it up. I agree, it doesn’t make very much sense to me, and it depends upon what State you live in. You make some reasonable points on a very political issue. I’m sure there is some interesting history about how they came about. I’d like to see and hear a debate among the various special interest groups on this topic and more information about how States differ. I’m sure this will also be of interest to a large number of people from Washington DC to the State capitals.
Posted on May 7th, 2009 at 7:59 am
Quite frankly it is ridiculous! The law, i would assume, is geared toward underage drinking, my question is what kid is going to pay 8 dollars for a 12oz bottle of Dogfish Head 120 minute when they could pay $5 for a dreadful bottle of Mad Dog or a 12pack of PBR. Not to mention all the Spirits, if they can get beer at a store whats to stop them from getting 151 or Everclear???
I’m actually surprised my home state of New Jersey doesn’t have the same issues with all the backward liquor laws in this state….
I hope things change for these states, there are some amazing heavy weight craft beers.
Posted on May 7th, 2009 at 10:28 am
I agree with you guys on the topic of ABV limits on beer. Did a Google search and search on BeerAdvocate and couldn’t find any arguments for a limit. Hopefully someone will post a comment about reasons to limit the ABV.
I would be interested to hear your thoughts on Georgia’s blue laws. Most of the arguments I’ve read come down to not about church or religion, but about affecting small mom and pop stores that would “have” to stay open on Sundays. I feel they wouldn’t have to stay open. If a store has great service and a good selection, I would still shop there the other 6 days out of the week.
Posted on May 7th, 2009 at 11:02 am
NO! Onward, ever upward, faithful followers!
Posted on May 7th, 2009 at 11:02 am
What they’re preventing or at least impeding, intentionally, is people doing things they don’t agree with. (Drinking. Especially drinking beer.) Though nobody’s rights are violated, some people think they entitled to police other people’s behaviors based upon their own biases, beliefs and sense of morality.
Not only do I think capping ABV is ridiculous, for the reasons you describe, I think limiting the sale of alcohol in general is idiotic. (However I will yield ground on having an age restriction.) Why does it matter what day of week or time of day you buy alcohol? I stopped grocery shopping on Sundays because I can’t buy beer in Georgia. But you better believe I drink one on a Sunday. (Often out of spite!)
As a cigar smoker, I look at the issues facing the beer industry faces, and I sigh. I wish we had it that good.
Posted on May 7th, 2009 at 11:09 am
I think in order to appease the law makers that want caps. I’m going to start a movement for a mandatory alcohol cap. That’s right a manditory cap for alcohol by volume, and I’m going to set it at %100. I mean anything more and it will just cause drinking problems, not to mention the laws of physics. Call me a new dry if you wish, but I’m just trying to arbitrate peace. Who’s with me?
Posted on May 7th, 2009 at 11:18 am
Great topic of discussion guys. As a new homebrewer myself I had no idea that there were caps in certain states on ABV for breweries. The video was informative and insightful. I have added a link to a wiki page that has info on alcohol laws by state. Im not sure how accurate it is (being a wiki) but from what I read it was also insightful. Hope it helps.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_the_United_States_by_state
Posted on May 7th, 2009 at 11:23 am
I am part of a group on facebook that a few months ago put a petition up to the state about allowing Alcohol sales on Sunday be decided by the counties themselves. Sadly it didn’t work because it was shot down by the Lieutenant Governor.
When it comes to ABV I agree with you guys at BeerAmerica in that you shouldn’t put a limit on creativity. I like David’s point of saying that grocery stores could put a limit on the ABV of the beer that they carry.
I will say this though albeit we have the ABV restriction at least we aren’t like Florida, in that we can actually have the 22 ounce bottles. That sucks because some breweries put specialty beers in those big bottles.
Hopefully one day we will win this battle but until then I will just bring back the amazingly good beers that we can’t get here in Georgia when I go to Florida every year.
Oh yea, Paul I am loving the shirt that you have been wearing in the past few videos!!! GO SOX!
Posted on May 7th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Dear Fellow HopHeads,
Greetings! I just discovered your very interesting website TODAY, and I really do think that it’s a GREAT way to inform & educate those of us who have come to appreciate the fine art of American craft brewing. I’ll definitely be visiting your website many times in the months ahead, and I very much hope that you’ll continue to produce your very interesting web broadcasts for all of us who will be “tuning in” from our computers. :-))
On an important side note, I’m a lifelong citizen of the state of Alabama, and, as you probably know, we’re still one of only TWO states who still have the pitiful & misguided 6% ABV limit on beer. I could give you lots of reasons why this useless law is still in place, but most of the valid ones revolve around ignorance, misplaced moralism & the fear it produces, and the usual plagues of power politics & special interests who DON’T want any competition.
Anywho, for the past couple of years, there has grown up an excellent grassroots effort to change our current restrictions : The “Free the Hops” movement. It’s really become a very popular issue, and we very much hope that Alabama will soon join the 48 other U.S. states who allow their citizens lots more freedom to purchase their favorite craft beer.
And even TODAY, the Alabama Senate just *might* finally set our hops FREE. The Alabama House has already passed the FTH bill (for the 2nd year in a row), and the House bill can now be brought up in the Senate at ANY time by the discretion of the chair.
This bill now has strong support, and the ONLY obstacle that might kill it is ONE particular state senator who honestly believes that ALL alcohol is EVIL. Just the other day, he pontificated that if it was possible, he would outlaw the consumption of ALL alcoholic beverages if he could do so.
It is, of course, just RIDICULOUS for our state to run lotsa liquor stores wherein anybody can purchase almost 200 proof pure grain alcohol, yet at the very same time, block the entry of higher ABV beer because some claim that it will somehow cause the final collapse of Western Civilization.
So, we shall see. We only have 3 days left in the current legislative session, and we FTH supporters are very much hoping that we’ll FINALLY get this thing done so that we no longer have to engage in long-distance “beer runs” in order to spend our money in other states that have the many excellent craft brews that we enjoy.
Thanks for taking my email message, and THANKS for developing this really interesting website. I very much look forward to learning many more interesting things as the American Craft Brewing movement continues to produce lots of new & interesting brews for the rest of us to enjoy.
All the Best & FREE THE HOPS!
Tom Cale
Madison, Alabama
Posted on May 7th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Thanks for this vid. I live in Mississippi and we have been going through this battle for a while now. Alabama has also been trying to raise their limit. This is a video from Alabama’s debate about changing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEFDVc6XCcc
The negative arguments are all nonsense. Was Alvin Holmes well-versed or what? He’s quite the speaker.
Posted on May 7th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Phil – that youtube video is amazing! It’s really funny in this day in age that an argument to keep the ABV in Alabama to 6% is that the “beer we got now drinks pretty good don’t it”? Thanks for sharing!!
Posted on May 7th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
We’ve added the YouTube video Phil gave us the link to because it’s so unbelievable we wanted to make sure you didn’t miss it:
http://beeramerica.tv/the-alcohol-by-volume-argument-alabama-style/
Posted on May 8th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
This is a great website. The real frustrating thing for us Alabamians, is that it doesn’t make any sense to limit consumer choice on something like this. Bear in mind that in Alabama we also have a 16 ounce container limit, our wine can’t be more than 16.5% ABV(was 14.9% until recently), and the last and final idiocy…
In the state of alabama you cannot become a beer entrepreneur and make your own brewery unless the county you are in had at any point in it’s past history a brewery of some sort. I think that there are very few counties that even had breweries in the past. Lee county, the birmingham area, montgomery are some I know of. The brewery in Lee county went under mostly because of ABV limits that limited what they could make and sell in house.
It’s a travesty that this has been going through the house and senate now for 4-5 years and some of the people who can make the vote aren’t even trying to educate themselves about some of the false statements they have made about beer in that video and in past debate. My favorites being the we already have enough beer choices why do we need more, or however it was worded. The unfortunate side effect of popularity votes instead of education or intelligence based voting.
Posted on May 8th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
Interesting. The issue furnishes us another example of American politics at it’s worst and best, with all the protagonists well represented. The You Tube video of the debate in the Alabama House will make you laugh, cheer, and perhaps cry. It’s been said many times that if the Founding Fathers returned today there would be another revolution. A great thing to see people comment on this issue, weighing in. This strikes at the core of the real problem today and it’s inevitable solution; apathy and indifference toward involvement has lead to our system being hijacked. Thanks, guys, for the venue.
Me, I think we need to get back to the intent of the wise people who framed our Federal and State systems of government. Less is more. Remove barriers to commerce and encourage free market capitalism. If the only way your product can compete in the marketplace is via regulatory restriction in your favor, what does that say about your product? Take the regulatory handcuffs off people who want to engage in a legal business. Ecourage development of the marketplace, don’t restrict it. Frankly, I think that even Augustus Busch would roll in his grave if he could see how things he helped start have ‘morphed’. I think he would wade into the legislature swinging a mash paddle if he knew how they tax and regulate the life out of his industry.
As to the extreme ignorance displayed by some of the Alabama Rep’s (you’ll see the same attitudes and ignorance reflected in every State House in the country) I can only say that maybe the Founding Fathers were right in that only qualified and educated thinking people should vote, or be allowed to hold office for that matter. Yeah, I know, that would limit freedom as well so no I don’t really believe that to be applicable today. But I do think we all have an obligation to be informed. Thanks Paul, John, David and others for bring the issue to our attention.
Posted on May 9th, 2009 at 9:24 am
With regards to the ABV cap, David hit the nail on the head about four minutes in to the video: insisting on total removal of the cap would have meant certain defeat. No group has been able to convince state legislators for a total removal of the cap.
We tend to forget how much we all know about beer. Seriously, in North Carolina, I had legislators insisting that Budweiser would make a 40% alcohol once the cap was removed (yeah, like they’ve done in the 45 other states without a low ABV cap).
As past president of Pop The Cap, I received a fair number of inquiries from frustrated people who wished the cap were totally removed. I wished that, too, but I’m a realist. I wrote a response to these folks, “What’s with the 15% cap?”. Here it is:
http://popthecap.org/?page_id=219
Keep up the great work, guys. Y’all are prolific!
Posted on May 9th, 2009 at 9:46 am
I’m against it 100% an I agree with y’all said about them not wanting to sell in it grocery stores. Which I still think is stupid when you get 151 that’s almost pure alcohol. What really upsets me about though I really wanted to try Dogfish’s 120 min IPA, and Samuel Adams Utopia.
Posted on July 27th, 2013 at 12:39 am