Traveller's Advisory: Silly Beer Laws

Like everyone else, Beer Travellers have to put up with rush-hour congestion and highway construction. They also have to steer around legal potholes.

Ask the members of Georgians for World Class Beer. They've been lobbying state legislators to repeal a 1935 law prohibiting the sale of beer having more than six percent alcohol. This archaic definition of "beer" keeps Belgian dubbels and tripels, German doppelbocks, and American barleywines off the store shelves.

A bill that would have repealed the six-percent limit was defeated once again last year. Opponents of repeal carried the day with the age-old argument: extra-strength beers would end up in the hands of teenagers looking for a quick buzz. Never mind that a high-schooler's beer of choice is more likely to be Molson Ice than Paulaner Salvator.

Georgia’s strong-beer prohibition is nothing compared to Utah's 3.2-percent limit on draft beer, which earned the state worldwide notoriety during the recent Winter Olympics. If you've had a pint of bitter in a British pub or a mug of Czech lager in a Prague beer hall, you know it's possible to brew great beer with a relatively low alcohol content. But that isn't the point: Utah's 3.2 law prevents that state's craft brewers from turning out a wide range of styles.

Until recently, Florida, the state that invented Spring Break, had one of the nation's silliest beer laws. Passed in 1965, it required containers to be one of four sizes: eight, 12, 24, or 32 ounces. The law, a by-product of a long-forgotten spat between Anheuser-Busch and Miller Brewing, posed no problem for the brewing giants. But craft brewers that preferred 22-ounce “bombers,” and European brewers using metric-sized bottles, were out of luck.

Lawmakers not only dictate what beers you can drink, but where and when you can buy them. Many states ban the sale of beer in grocery stores. Oklahoma goes one step further, forcing its citizens to go to state liquor stores to buy beer stronger than 3.2 percent. In Connecticut, beer can't be sold after 8 pm, bringing to mind Yogi Berra's line, "It gets late out early." And Sunday remains a hit-or-miss proposition for traveling beer lovers; archaic blue laws ban package sales, and, in some states, force bars to close.

My home state of Michigan has repealed most of its silly laws, but every Yuletide it turns into a Grinch. It's against the law to serve alcohol on Christmas Day, even in restaurants serving holiday buffets. And silliness persists at the local level: one nearby town bars its brewpub from selling beer to go; officials are afraid that customers will share their growlers with underage friends.

With apologies to its residents, who've been very kind to me, I find Pennsylvania the nation's most frustrating state for buying beer. Stores aren't allowed to sell less than a case--something visitors learn when they try to break one up and get a scolding from an employee. If you want a six-pack, you have to buy it at a tavern–at a hefty markup.

You say there aren't any strange beer laws where you live? Think again. Dozens of craft beers are unavailable, thanks to the way beer is distributed in this country.

To make a long story short, the Twenty-First Amendment, which repealed Prohibition, gave states broad authority to control the sale of alcoholic beverages. Most legislatures responded by forbidding brewers to sell directly to the public. They mandated a "three-tier" system: the brewer sells to a distributor which, in turn, sells the beer to bars and stores.

Modern-day beer distributors are wealthy and powerful businessmen, who profit from having a legalized monopoly. And their privileged position comes at your expense: in many states, distributors limit the selection of beer you can enjoy.

Whether you can buy a particular beer at home depends whether the distributor handles it. If it doesn't, there are several possible explanations. Maybe the brewery doesn't distribute the brand in your area. Perhaps it isn't worth the distributor's time and effort to handle it. Or possibly, a big brewery has pressured the distributor to avoid competitor's products.

So the beer you love isn't available where you live. How about asking the brewery to sell you some? That, too, is a no-no. In many states, the three-tier system bars breweries from shipping beer directly to you. And state officials–who ought to be chasing real criminals--are enforcing direct-shipment laws with a vengeance. Their justification is–you guessed it–that “cyberbooze” promotes underage drinking.

The bottom line: beer and politics don't mix. A great deal of legislation--and we're not just talking about beer--is the result of misguided emotion and strong-armed lobbying. If you find silly beer laws where you live, speak up. Write your lawmakers and explain to them why they don't make sense. Be reasonable, but be persistent. After all, it took a lot of grass-roots work to legalize homebrewing and brewpubs.

Compared to the world's other injustices, silly beer laws are--pun intended--small beer. Nevertheless, they're not only silly, but also a reminder that Prohibition is very much alive.