~EDIT:
No need to read the whole thing unless you're bored.
Cliffs Notes~14% alcohol in beer is ok now

Hoist a glass (not bottle) to lustier beer

By ELIZABETH LEE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/30/04


Guess which one you can't buy in Georgia until Thursday: beer containing 6.1 percent alcohol, or a bottle of distilled spirits that's 95 percent alcohol?

If you picked that 190-proof grain alcohol, you must not be from around here. In the convoluted world of state alcohol regulations, what might seem logical isn't always what's legal.

After the repeal of Prohibition, Georgia state legislators in 1935 banned selling beer with more than 6 percent alcohol by volume. Across metro Atlanta on Thursday, beer lovers will raise their glasses to a new law that increases the limit to 14 percent, about what's found in some table wine, clearing the way for scores of European ales and American craft brews.

Relaxing 70-year-old alcohol regulations was no easy task. After seven years of trying, proponents finally won the day with some of the oldest political strategies around: free beer, a paid lobbyist and an appeal for small businesses. And, oh yes, the promise of increased tax revenues.

The craft beer champions who organized to bring their favorite brews to Georgia plan a daylong celebration featuring a midnight pour Thursday at 5 Seasons Brewing in Sandy Springs, a scavenger hunt to find the best selection at liquor stores and — of course — plenty of sipping. No more beer runs to Chattanooga. No more stuffing airline carry-ons with specialty bottles unavailable at home.

"We've been waiting for this for years," said Scott Hargis of Atlanta, who chartered two boat trips through Belgium to sample that country's ales.

Late to the party

Georgia has been late to join the craft beer revival. Mass-produced lagers hold 85 percent of the beer market nationally, and virtually all of it in Georgia. Craft beers account for perhaps 3 percent of the Georgia market.

Allowing higher-alcohol beers likely won't change that much. Those beers are a niche product that will show up in pubs, microbreweries, restaurants and package stores, and are not likely to crowd Bud Light off the shelves.

Fans of the more costly specialty brews — beer geeks, if you please, not beer snobs — compare them to fine wines. Most have an alcohol content of 6 to 8 percent, compared with 5 percent for a light lager such as Budweiser, and are meant to be drunk in smaller quantities. They can be cellared for up to 20 years and are best when served at the proper temperature: warmer for ales, refrigerator-style for lager.

"Not only is it understood that you drink it out of a glass, but you have to drink it out of the right glass as well," said Dave Blanchard, an owner of the Brick Store Pub in Decatur. "Certainly none of these things would be drunk out of the bottle. That's a big no-no."

Blanchard, who worked to change the law, plans to double his selection of glass styles to more than 100 and perhaps add a specialty beer bar. Brewpubs and microbrewers in Georgia are adding styles that were off-limits before, like barley wines.

A taste for flavor

The beer geek's path from light lager to hoppy India pale ales and doubel bocks usually starts with sampling more distinctive mass-produced brews. That unleashes a thirst for even more flavorful beers, ones produced with more malt — which produces more alcohol as it ferments. The most dedicated eventually move on to brewing their own.

That's how Ted Hull and Mark Nelson, two of the organizers of Georgians for World Class Beer, got started. Hull, a civil engineer, and Nelson, an information technology specialist, met when volunteering at the World Cup of Beer competition in Atlanta soon after the 1996 Olympics. As they sampled unfamiliar styles, they discovered a new world. They joined Ale Atlanta, an appreciation and education club, and started working to change the law so those beers could be sold in Georgia.

Legislators had approved brewpubs in 1995 and home-brewing in 1993, and all but a handful of other Southern states allowed them. Yet loosening the alcohol content restriction proved tougher than expected.

Legislators speculated that mass-market breweries would start churning out more potent brews and fretted about offending conservative voters. Yet a spokesman for Anheuser-Busch, the country's largest brewer, said it had no plans for stronger beers.

"Politicians need to be respectful of any issue dealing with alcohol. People have very strong personal feelings about alcohol," said Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield (D-Decatur), a sponsor of the bill. She first checked with Mothers Against Drunk Driving. "They certainly weren't supporting the bill," she said, "but they didn't lobby against it."

Georgians for World Class Beer sought industry support and organized fund-raisers to pay for a lobbyist. They stocked hospitality suites with samples of the higher-alcohol beer. They talked with legislators about who was likely to drink the stronger beer — older drinkers who'd developed a taste for it while traveling — and who was not — teens who would balk at the cost. They talked about beer runs to Florida and Tennessee, which were reaping tax revenue from Georgians, and about how the new law would help small businesses.

The bill passed with wide, bipartisan support in the General Assembly.

A few states still prohibit higher-alcohol beers: North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas. Pop the Cap, a group trying to change North Carolina's law, is modeling its lobbying efforts on what worked in Georgia.

Hull plans a restrained celebration on Thursday. "I'm going to do my best to stay awake for the party at 5 Seasons," Hull says. "I'm looking forward to seeing the local folks at the brewpubs loose the noose on their creativity that the law's represented for so long."

 

I bet *HICUP* shthat sleddoggs *HICUP* is gonna come*HICUP*come*HICUP* come down shthere for a vizzit. *HICUP* 'N maybe play shome gulf...

 

Loading up the clubs as I type. Which by the way is not easy.

So what kind of beer has 14%, aint goin to be drinkin no colt 45.

14%, bet that would throw my beer to lost ball ratio way out of wack..

Sled...

 

LMAO! Oddly enough, I was thinking the same thing.