Posted on 03/10/2008 9:50:29 AM PDT by vietvet67
HARVEST, ALA. -- Two dozen guys are crowded into a basement, talking loudly over Triscuits, when Scott Oberman breaks the law.
In defiance of Alabama Criminal Code 28-4-20, he pours his buddy a beer.
"John Tipton's Chocolate Porter," he announces. It's a dark brown beer, almost black, with a taste that starts out astringent, like cheap red wine, then mellows into a silky chocolate flavor, with fleeting notes of coffee and cinnamon.
Tipton, a big-bellied mechanical engineer, brewed it at home, for fun. That's illegal in Alabama. He estimates the beer is about 8% alcohol by volume. That's illegal, too.
But it won't be for long, if the guys in the basement get their way.
Seventy-five years after Prohibition, beer aficionados in Alabama are fighting for the right to brew and chug as they please. That's raised the ire of Southern Baptists, who frown on alcohol in any form. As they jockey for advantage in the Legislature, one side quotes Scripture. The other cites BeerAdvocate.com. One talks morality. The other, malt.
Though this may seem like an only-in-the-Bible-Belt brawl, booze-related debates have flared recently in a number of states.
In Virginia, for instance, sangria was the talk of the statehouse after a Spanish restaurant was cited for illegally mixing brandy with wine, in violation of a 1930s-era statute. Idaho lawmakers may soon amend the criminal code to permit vodka sales on election days. And in Colorado, lawmakers have considered rescinding a law that bans supermarkets (but not liquor stores) from selling wine with more than 3.2% alcohol content.
Here in Alabama, home-brewing beer has long been a Class A misdemeanor, with a penalty of up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
That's the plan! ;-)
That’s just lovely.
They better get it done before November, 2008! I can see we're ALL going to need to drink heavily election day evening!
Mark
I am a member of a Southern Baptist church, and alcohol is one of my few problems with their doctrine. They completely ignore that not only did Jesus serve wine, and lots of it to a wedding party, but it was one of His first miracles. He also drank wine frequently and states in the gospel of Luke that He was even accused of being a drunkard by the pharisees.
I am moving to a small town in Alabama soon, and I’m sure this controversy is going to come up since I still indulge in moderation.
“My chocolate porter starts smooth as silk, and finishes smooth as silk. The secrets? 1/2 lb of oatmeal in the mash and 3/4 lb Van Houten Cocoa Powder in the fermenter 1/2 lb of lactose when you bottle.”
You’re making me thirsty. With beer prices here in Northern Colorado breaking $8 for a six-pack I’m going to start brewing my own again. I love Stout and Porter.
“Beer is beer, the cheap, yellow-gold beverage of choice of many men. Go sing your silky, fleeting, bleating notes in San Francisco, or Paris-and-Milan, you transplanted w(h)ine snobs.”
Stouts, Porters and Ales are the beers of men not that yellow-gold yeast-p*ss you’re calling beer, which is made mostly from rice.
heheheheheh the stuff in one fermenter started out with an OG of 1.095..... its down to 1.018... but not clarifying well yet. I sampled and there is nothing bad about it. It is smoooooooth. Isenglass and gelatin before I bottle, I think, and it should be ready by fall. 10 or 11% ish brew.
Oh, and conical fermenters rock. Screw racking to secondary. Sanitize, throw a valve, dump the trub, and draw a sample.
Here in WA you can have up to 8% Alc
Did you use Irish Moss in the boil? I hear good thngs about it, have yet to try it. Im at work right now, been here for almost 3 weeks...Got a batch finishing right now, and will be brewing another batch when I get home. WooHoo!!!!
One of those is definitely on my list for when I get a bigger place to brew.
Is that the brewery located in the old train station? Drank many brews there?
Its a real tragedy, though, that thousands of perfectly good breweries were shut down as a result of the Volstead act. It isn’t snobbery to like good beer, I bet plenty of the prewar brews were just fine. I don’t like the price however, because beer cannot be subsidized, another casualty of prohibition. Same thing happened to local coffee roasters come to think of it. Every town of any size had a local importer and roaster blend. Then the war came and ‘instant’ ersatz and canned coffee was the standard. The purveyors today might be a different breed today but homebrew blows mass produced swill outta the water.
dude there is nothing finer than a cold hefe on a hot summer day sitting in a biergarten. That’s about as working class as it gets too - and they let strangers run a tab for the night. Cheap too, prior to the Euro. 8 bucks a case. Gotta be frisch.
“Is that the brewery located in the old train station? Drank many brews there?”
Have no idea. Trucker friend mentioned seeing this beer in a Montana bar. I grabbed image off google.(supposed to be a bar in Idaho.) Brewery shows address of 5417 Trumpeter Way
Missoula, MT. I’ve never been there..
you should go if you’re in the neighborhood. I drank plenty of Ranier beer, sadly they are gone now I think. Am not a fan of the ‘goat scrotum’ fad in names but that one is Ok, I guess.
It sounds like the tyrants in any state. So, it's alcohol in Alabama. It's cheese burgers in Californian.
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