Great news

I know blogging has been light of late, but I couldn't wait to share this bit of news:

Members and supporters of Free the Hops,

HB196, the Gourmet Beer Bill, passed the House yesterday. The fact that
it passed is entirely due to all the hard work you put in to contacting
your house representatives - we passed the BIR by one vote over the 3/5
majority needed, then passed the bill by 6 votes - if you had not all
worked so diligently to speak to your representatives, this may have had
a very different outcome!

The next step is to go to the Senate. We will be discussing this with
our lobbyist to work out a timescale for this to happen, and what you
can do to help pass the Senate bill, which may not happen for another
few weeks.

Thank you again - we are one step closer to Freeing the Hops!

For those of you who have missed my earlier rants on this topic, ... AL is one of the very few states that still prohibits the sale of beer with 6% or higher alcohol content. I won't even go into the logical (to me) arguments against this law, but Free the Hops is an organization that has been working for the last several years to change the law. I honestly figured it was hopeless because two groups were against the change.

First, the beer distributors in the state. Because of prohibition-era laws, alcohol has to go through a crazy distribution system. Evidently the distributors did not want the hassle of dealing with small volumes of specialty beers and there was some talk that the big companies were applying pressure because they felt threatened by the competition. Recently I learned a deal (hope it's not one we regret) had been struck with the distributors. That left the moralists.

I still think this group is the biggest obstacle and I've already read quotes such as, "This will just make it easier for teenagers to get drunk and kill themselves in car crashes." I'm not convinced we'll be able to get the bill through the state senate. In addition to the political unpopularity of passing a law that would "make it easier for teenagers to get drunk," the Senate currently is going through a phase where they seemed determined NOT to pass any bill! It's basically one guy who is pissed that the Republicans took away a sweetheart earmark for his district at the last minute last year because he stabbed them in the back on a power-sharing agreement. Regardless, he's stalling almost every bill as revenge. Once the logjam is broken, I doubt the beer bill will be at the top of the heap.

So while I'm not convinced that we have "won", I am encouraged that the distributors have seemingly dropped their objections and the House at least has seen fit to pass this bill. Now there's just one more hurdle. I hope that can be passed before someone realizes many of the supporters' claims are just as silly as those of opponents. For instance, one of the "selling points" for this bill is that it would increase tourism from people who are used to being able to buy these beers in their home states. C'mon, does anyone really believe that? Still, if it works I'll give a sound bite about the economic impact of such a law. I'm not above pandering.