Ban Potent Beer — For the Children!

If you live in Alabama and you love fancy beers, sorry — no imperial stouts, doppelbocks, or Trappist ales for you.

The Alabama House said "no" Tuesday to a bill that would have increased the alcohol content allowed in beer sold in Alabama. Rep. Thomas Jackson, D-Thomasville, sponsored the bill, which he said would have allowed the sale of some imported and gourmet beers that have a higher alcohol content than the 6 percent now allowed. Jackson's bill would have increased the allowable alcohol content to 14.9 percent. ...

"I can't see us doing something that's going to encourage people to drink more and get drunk faster," said Rep. DuWayne Bridges, D-Valley. Bridges said the measure would increase the problem of teenagers drinking by making more potent brew available to them. "Our children don't need to increase their alcohol consumption," Bridges said.

For career politicians, posturing about the need to protect the innocent tow-headed children just never gets old, does it?

The legal drinking age in Alabama is 21 (so you can drive a schoolbus, smoke cigars, have sex, or enlist in the armed forces long before you're by law allowed to have a sip of beer). Bridges' ostensible concern about children getting their hands on high-potency brew is idiotic for three reasons:

1. Children and teenagers can't even legally buy a bottle of watery horse piss Bud Light in his state. Allowing gourmet beer to be sold has no bearing on the likelihood or legality of kids obtaining alcohol.
2. Kids willing to break the law to get drunk have hundreds of alcoholic beverages to choose from already, and the Alabama legislature apparently has no problem with any of those products. The options include cheap bourbon, gin, rum, and vodka. Even pure grain alcohol is legal for consumption.
3. Is DuWayne Bridges high, or drunk, or what? What teenager looking for a buzz is going to spend six or seven dollars on a 12-oz bottle of Belgian Westmalle Tripel or a German Plank Heller Weizenbock?

The defeat of Tom Jackson's bill doesn't mean that teen drinking has been dealt even the puniest of blows, of course. The only thing the Alabama legislature has just accomplished is that it's directing law-abiding taxpayers who happen to enjoy microbrew beers to do their shopping in Georgia, on yonder side of the state border. There, the customer is king, and legal substances like beer are freely bought and sold. Imagine that.

Comments

[Mike]

Yes, better to restrict us to watered-down piss. That way we avoid all the problems associated with people shotgunning two-hearted ales and chugging multiple imperial stouts through a funnel.

Ohio raised the alcohol limit on beer a few years ago, and it's amazing how fast broke-ass college students at Ohio State started hosting 50-keg parties with Dogfish Head IPA's and the like.