Legal News

Alabama Senate Approves Stronger Beer Law: ?Sheer Disaster? Is Nigh

By Jennifer Forsyth

Sometimes it’s hard to believe Alabama and Louisiana are so near to each other. Convention has it that Louisianans have never seen a drink they wouldn’t imbibe while Alabamans think alcohol is the devil’s brew. (Are Mississippians trying to work out a happy medium? Wine spritzers, perhaps?)

But things are starting to loosen a little in the Heart of Dixie, according to the following report from WSJ reporter David Kesmodel.

Thursday afternoon in Montgomery, the Alabama Senate passed a bill that would raise the amount of alcohol allowed in beer for sale to 13.9% by volume from 6%. The measure, which now goes to Republican Gov. Bob Riley for signing, would permit sales of a wide range of upscale brews currently banned in Alabama, including many Belgian ales and hundreds of American small-batch "craft" beers.

The legislation is the result of a dogged five-year effort to change the state's beer laws by a group of beer junkies called Free the Hops. Of the top 100 beers rated by users of beer-enthusiast site BeerAdvocate.com, more than 80 can't be sold anywhere in Alabama due to the alcohol-volume cap.

The Senate passage happened in dramatic fashion. Republican Sen. Hank Erwin, one of Alabama's most conservative legislators, used a filibuster last month to block a vote on the bill. Allowing beers like Bell's HopSlam Ale and Bear Republic's Hop Rod Rye "would set us up for sheer disaster for the consequences that would come of it," said the 60-year-old Erwin, in a tirade against the legislation.

Erwin, a longtime television commentator and devout Baptist from Montevallo, Ala., made headlines in 2005 when he wrote that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for "gambling, sin and wickedness" in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast.

Proponents feared Erwin would again quash a vote when the legislature reconvened Thursday for the second to last day of Alabama's legislative session. But when Erwin stepped out of the chamber Thursday afternoon (LB is guessing he didn’t go out for a beer), the Senate quickly staged a vote before he could return, according to Michael Sullivan, the lobbyist for Free the Hops.

The House had passed the legislation in March, so now signing by the governor awaits. Gov. Riley has not taken a position on the bill and will review it thoroughly in the coming days, said his press secretary, Todd Stacy.

"I'm still in shock," said Danner Kline, a 30-year-old craft beer lover who founded Free the Hops in 2004 to push for the alcohol legislation. "This became as much of a personal crusade as anything else. I had a tremendous amount of pride on the line and was on the brink of depression when Erwin filibustered us."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on May 14, 2009 (boomark / email).