What Have You Done for Beer Lately?

What? You thought because you helped somebody pick out a good Stout at a liquor store that you were a beer advocate? Sure, that’s a nice thing to do, but when’s the last time you wrote your state legislator or your senator? Better yet, when’s the last time you wrote a bill that changed state law?

Those are exactly the sort of things that brewers guilds and organizations like Free The Hops (FTH) have been doing for years. With lobbyists, grassroots movements and letter-writing campaigns, these groups are putting the “advocate” in BeerAdvocate.

But just like you in the liquor store, the folks at FTH didn’t start their journey to a lifetime of good beer karma in the offices of state senators. The Alabama-based organization’s mission of repealing restrictive laws on beer began at founder Danner Kline’s kitchen table in 2004 with two friends. After a year or so, the group had grown to include over 100 members, and by 2006, there were over 1,000 people following the organization. FTH also sent its first version of the Gourmet Beer Bill to the state Legislature, a bill aimed at lifting a ban on beer over 6 percent ABV.

“We didn’t put it in with any expectation of it doing anything,” FTH president Stuart Carter said. “We put it in to find out what kind of stupid questions and fear we’d have to deal with going forward.”

They discovered that there was an insufficient amount of knowledge about craft beer at the Capitol, and in Alabama in general. To rectify this problem, FTH organized their first annual Magic City Brewfest in Birmingham to showcase the best craft brews available and to educate the general population. Slowly, a demand for craft beer began to grow.

“Well, the first year, people went up to craft brewers and asked what they had that’s most like Miller Lite,” Carter said. “That was a fairly common question in 2007, it was a fairly uncommon question in 2008, and in 2009, people were asking where they could get more Yeti.”

Still, things moved slowly in the Legislature. So slowly, in fact, that Carter says the Gourmet Beer Bill was awarded the Shroud Award in 2007—a joke award for “the deadest bill in the session.” In 2008, the bill again died on the floor when the legislators spent most of their time filibustering on issues unrelated to the Gourmet Beer Bill. But this was also the year that FTH introduced the 20-page pamphlet “The Newcomer’s Guide to Myths and Misconceptions Concerning Gourmet Beer and its Future in Alabama,” or as Carter calls it, “The Newcomer’s Guide to Beer Snobbery in Alabama.”

The pamphlet provided more education about the facts of craft brewing and the impact that the bill could have on the state economy. It also had something else that most pamphlets passed around the halls in the Capitol didn’t—humor. A legislator didn’t have to read past the first line to know he was reading something fresh: “Hi. We’re Free the Hops. You might’ve heard of us.”

Finally, in May, FTH caught a break. The bill dodged a filibuster by a staunch detractor, was passed by the Legislature and signed into law by Governor Bob Riley on May 22. “How did we get all that done?  It’s just been four years of hard work and frustration, grinding hard work,” Carter said. But the job is never truly done. Carter says that FTH will work to repeal laws that limit container volume to 16 ounces, prohibit homebrewing, prohibit brewers from providing samples on premise and make it virtually impossible to operate a brewpub unless the site was a working brewery before 1919.

“Just now, we’re consulting with our membership as to what they think the top priorities should be for us to deal with,” Carter said. “So far, it’s a fairly clear split with the two most important things our members want us to look at next.

I’m not saying what they are because once we finish consulting with our members, I’ll be putting up a survey … where basically, if you have an interest in Alabama’s beer culture, you can have input in what Free The Hops deals with in 2010 going forward as far as our legislative agenda. We’re doing it this way because we are a grassroots group. We are a consumer group.”

While Free The Hops holds down Alabama, the Brewers Association is always on the lookout to protect craft brewers across the United States. Most recently, that meant challenging a proposal to fund health care reform by raising taxes on beer. The proposal was to raise taxes on beer production to make it equal to that of wine and spirits with regard to ABV—a move that Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association, said would have drastic effects on smaller breweries around the country.

“If excise increases go through, this could be the death knell for a number of the smallest brewers,” Gatza said. “Part of the impact of the worst case scenario of equivalency, where beer would be taxed at the same dollars per proof gallon as spirits and wine, [is] it would drive people based on price to get the best bang for their buck and drive some consumers to go to spirits.”

The BA organized a letter-writing campaign, worked with lobbyists and sent letters themselves to the US Senate and House of Representatives. As a result, the Legislature went away from the proposal to raise taxes on beer and found other sources for funding in the first version of the bill. So far, the efforts of the BA and everyone who wrote letters seem to have paid off, but Gatza remains cautious. “It’s something that we’ll have to keep fighting as it crops up over the years,” he said.

Still, not all efforts to protect brewers and beer drinkers are successful. Beginning in August, Massachusetts residents will no longer benefit from a sales tax exemption on beer and alcohol. Along with an increase in the sales tax overall, beer drinkers will be hit with a 6.25 percent increase in the cost of their beer. The Massachusetts Brewers Guild fought to stop this increase with letters to state legislators, as well as a grassroots ad campaign along with package store owners and the Wholesalers Organization, which put signs in windows of package stores urging customers to contact their representative.

“The [Massachusetts] Brewers Guild’s members are independent craft brewers, and we are competing in a world of giants like [Anheuser-Busch InBev] and MillerCoors,” said Michelle Sullivan, the government affairs liaison for the Mass. Brewers Guild. “They can absorb cost increases invisibly—we [cannot]. This again hampers our ability to survive as the little fish in the pond. Also, we know that drinkers, now more than ever, are struggling financially. … We believe that consumers may be forced to ‘trade down’ in a recession. With more [craft-like] beers available enticing drinkers to trade down from craft—like a Blue Moon brewed by MillerCoors—a 50-cent higher price might cause drinkers on the fence to not buy craft beer.”

Battles like these continue to be fought in states around the nation, and just as there are organizations to defend beer, there are those that lobby for increased taxes to fund substance abuse and youth prevention programs. It’s a constant struggle, and one that often draws out the questions: Why is beer so special that it deserves all this attention? Aren’t there bigger issues to tackle right now?

“People have said that to us frequently: ‘It’s just beer. There’s more important things out there,’” Carter said. “Sure there’s more important things out there, [but] being involved doesn’t mean you can’t be involved in other things. Being involved in changing the beer laws has gotten an entire generation involved in politics that has never been involved before. It’s gotten people to register to vote. Some people are even running for office themselves because they’ve gotten involved in our issue. Yeah, it’s only beer, but it’s not. It’s learning how the Legislature works, learning who your politicians are, getting angry how shoddy representation is in certain areas, and people getting passionate and wanting to make a difference.

“Going forth, Alabama is going to get better because we passed the beer law,” Carter continued. “It’s going to get better in a lot of different ways because the struggle that Free The Hops has had in reforming the beer laws has gotten people involved in politics. As voters, as people making phone calls, running for office. … It’s going to completely change the politics of Alabama, because of beer.” ■