What's so hard about brewing beer in Alabama?
Here’s a follow up on Olde Towne Brewery (seriously guy, do we need all the extra e’s?) They’ve gotten a chance to go through the burnt shell of the brewery and have determined that all eight of the brewing tanks survived the fire. They can be transported to a new location and brew beer yet again. Huzzah.
In the meantime, Olde Towne is talking with contract breweries in other states to start producing Olde Towne recipes until the brewery can be rebuilt locally.
What’s more interesting are some of the curious Alabama alcohol laws that have come to light due to the event. If you’re like me, you probably just assumed all Alabama alcohol laws are backwards, irrational, and try to enforce some wacky moralistic agenda. You’re more or less correct.
The brewery will have to rebuild near downtown because Huntsville zoning laws require the brewery be built in a C-3 commercial district, which is essentially only downtown Huntsville.
The founder has repeatedly said he is not interested in opening a brewpub. This is due to the fact that the state requires that a brewpub be opened in a nationally recognized historic building and forbids the beer from being packaged and consumed elsewhere. Also, the nationally recognized historic building must be able to seat at least 80 customers and be located in a county where brewing beer was legal prior to the ratification of the 18th Amendment. It’s almost like the state doesn’t want these businesses in Alabama. I’m kind of surprised there aren’t “building must be built a minimum of X feet above sea-level,” “building’s front door must be facing west,” and "building's historic address must be a prime number" requirements. It seems like there are a lot of other bizarre restrictions we could add.
Another well known restriction is Alabama is one of only three states that limit beer to be 6 percent alcohol or less (hat tip West Virginia and Mississippi). That makes brewing certain styles of beer tricky. Free the Hops, an organization dedicated to help change alcohol laws in Alabama estimates that excludes 1/3 of the world’s beer styles. Free the Hops also reports that those two other states are in the process of changing their laws.
Frankly its sort of amazing Alabama has produced any decent beer at all.
2 comments:
Free the Hops attempted to get a bill passed removing the silly 6% law, but it was defeated in Congress this year.
Their Beer Festival is still A-#1 in my eyes. You'll have to come down and check it out next year.
The beers from Olde Towne didn't do much for me compared with some of the others, but as a Hsv brewery it still has a special place in my heart.
True, I wouldn't put Olde Towne on a list of my top ten or so beers. But it's hard not to root for the home team.
Their beers have been consistently better when I get them on tap at a restaurant than when I buy them by the bottle. They put out a porter that was damn tasty in fact.
I hope they try to put out a cream stout. I love trying microbrew cream stouts.
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