Free Republic

Lawmaker proposes lower military drinking age • A Maryland senator has proposed a new bill to allow 18-year-old members of the US military to drink alcohol, despite the legal drinking age in the country being 21. Senator Ron Young, D-Frederick proposed a reduction in the legal drinking age for military members to the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee on Friday. The bill would permit service members under the age of 21 to drink beer and wine at a bar or restaurant by showing valid military identification, however spirits and off-premise purchases would still be prohibited. “Is someone can...

Some breweries have taken to resurrecting the flavors of ages past. Adventurous beer makers are extrapolating recipes from clues that archeologists have uncovered from old and even ancient brews found at historical sites. Now scientists have analyzed some of the oldest preserved beer samples from an 1840s' shipwreck to try to provide insight into how they were made. They report their findings in ACS' Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry. Brian Gibson and colleagues explain that in 2010, divers discovered an old schooner at the bottom of the Baltic Sea near Finland. Archeological evidence suggested the ship went down about...

Anheuser-Busch InBev is having a tough time getting millennials to crack open a can of Budweiser. The world’s biggest brewer said Thursday that falling unemployment and “premium” brands are boosting overall beer sales in the US, its biggest market. But the company is struggling to market Bud — the 139-year-old American brand with blue-collar roots — to younger drinkers, who prefer craft brews and bourbon.

The Office of Regulatory Reinvention granted permission to the Michigan Liquor Control Commission to open a review of alcohol control rules. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy weighed in on two (beer and wine) of them today. The Mackinac Center has long had an interest in the state’s beer and wine rules because they, among other things, raise the cost of beer and wine in the state while enriching a handful of crony capitalists. One study indicates that these rules may raise the cost of beer and wine by 6.4 percent to 30 percent, depending on the price. The rules...

ANKENY, Iowa —The Ankeny School Board voted unanimously Monday to accept the resignation of a teacher who police said was intoxicated and had been in her classroom. The vote was made Monday evening. Police said they were called to East Elementary School at 710 SE 3rd St. at 2 p.m. after receiving a report that a teacher was observed with a can of beer in her classroom. Police said the teacher was taken into custody after testing positive during a preliminary breath test. A bag in her classroom had two empty cans of beer and four additional full cans of...

Dear Legislators: I am writing to ask the Regulatory Reform Committee to examine why the Michigan Liquor Control Commission continues to maintain “post and hold” rules designed to facilitate tacit price collusion between Michigan’s beer and wine wholesalers. The result is to keep prices of those products artificially high, which pads the bottom line of a handful of politically well-connected special interest beneficiaries at the expense of consumers. How much does this cost the residents you represent? One study estimates that post and hold rules raise the price of beer and wine products by 6.4 percent to 30 percent. These...

RICHMOND, Va. — The maker of Red Bull energy drinks is challenging a Virginia craft brewery’s use of the word “ox” in its brand name.

Beer could help 'protect brain against Parkinson's and Alzheimer's' " As self-delusional arguments go, it sounds like it is up there with claims that a bowl of ice-cream supplies a quarter of your daily calcium needs. However, scientists in China have found that drinking beer could help protect the brain from a number of degenerative brain diseases. A team of researchers at Lanzhou University have published a study which claims that xanthohumol, a type of flavinoid found in hops, could help protect the brain against the onset of diseases such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's and dementia. According to Jianguo Fang,...

Football fans will be discouraged from drinking “non-union” beers like Guinness and Heineken while they’re at Super Bowl parties. During Sunday’s Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, labor groups are hoping to raise awareness about beer companies that are unionized and pay their employees good wages. Labor 411’s list of approved beers for the Super Bowl includes companies like Stella Artois, which boasts strong union membership. But Guinness, Heineken, Corona, Flying Dog, and many other beermakers did not make the list, said Robert Fulton, the editorial director of Labor 411. "If you’re out making your choice...

Football fans might want to start pretending there is something in their eye now in advance of Sunday’s big game, because if Budweiser’s newest Clydesdale commercial has anything to say about it, viewers will be bawling by halftime.

When it comes to beverages with benefits, wine always seems to get the credit. If you're a brew lover, that might make you want to cry in your beer. But before you do, you'll be glad to learn that, like wine, beer delivers some decided perks as well. "A cold beer is the perfect way to relax at the end of the day, it tastes great and, in moderation, it can even be good for you," says Ethan A. Bergman, PhD, RD, CD, FADA, past president of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Here are five ways your favorite brew...

It is only a couple of weeks into the new year but it looks like we already have a strong contender for the dopiest article of the year, emphasis on "dope" as we shall see. A bizarre solution to reducing campus rapes comes to us by way of Annie Lowery of New York magazine. Her solution is to raise taxes on beer while also encouraging people to smoke more marijuana. After acknowledging that the Rolling Stone story about a drunken fraternity rape case was just a fairy tale, Lowery takes a deep plunge into the world of utterly stupid:

PRAGUE (AP) — Czech state-owned brewery Budejovicky Budvar, which has been fighting a long legal battle with U.S. beer giant Anheuser-Busch over the use of the "Budweiser" brand, says its overall output and exports reached record highs in 2014. Budejovicky Budvar NP says exports rose by 6 percent to reach 813,000 hectoliters (21.48 million gallons) of beer, the best result in 119 years. Budvar exported to 70 countries last year, five more than the previous year. Overall output reached 1.457 million hectoliters, up 2.5 percent from 2013. Profit figures from the brewery are due in April. Both Budvar and Anheuser-Busch...

Columbia? Taken. Mississippi? Taken. Sacramento? El Niño? Marlin? Grizzly? Sorry, they're all taken. Virtually every large city, notable landscape feature, creature and weather pattern of North America — as well as myriad other words, concepts and images — has been snapped up and trademarked as the name of either a brewery or a beer. For newcomers to the increasingly crowded industry of more than 3,000 breweries, finding names for beers, or even themselves, is increasingly hard to do without risking a legal fight. Candace Moon, aka The Craft Beer Attorney, is a San Diego lawyer who specializes in helping brewers...

Problems with the 2014 malt barley crop in the western United States resulted in the worst year for malting production in the nation. This year, farmers and maltsters scrambled to salvage a large portion of the crop hit by heavy rains in August, especially in Montana and Idaho, the top two barley-growing states in the U.S. Growers in North Dakota and Alberta, Canada, faced similar issues. Scott Heisel, vice president at the American Malting Barley Association, said "the industry has never had to deal with this issue on this scale before." Fields with half of Montana's crop and 85 percent...

In the month of December alcohol consumption increases as many people celebrate the festive season. But how does your drinking measure up to the average from countries around the world? Find out below if you are similar to a boozy Belarusian or a teetotal Kuwaiti.

It might not be as fragrant as evergreen but this giant beer keg Christmas tree sure taps into the festive spirit. The Genesee Brewing Co. in Rochester, New York, spent around two weeks constructing the 23-foot-high structure out of 300 stainless steel half-barrels. Employees laced it with 600 feet of green LED lighting and placed a rotating sign bearing the company's name on top instead of an angel.

A Wisconsin man told a sheriff's deputy he had not been drinking, but rather eating beer-battered fish when he was pulled over for what could be his 10th drunken driving offense, according to an incident report released on Wednesday. John Przybyla, 73, was stopped for a broken tail light and erratic driving on Oct. 12 by a deputy who then smelled alcohol on his breath and saw that his eyes were blood shot. The deputy asked Przybyla how much he had had to drink. Przybyla replied that he had not been drinking and instead had eaten beer-battered fish at a...

When a group of seven or eight teenagers tried to rob a man outside a KFC in Dorchester Friday night, the victim used what he had available for protection: beer. According to Boston Police, the victim said he was at 481 Washington Street around 10:20 p.m., when two men from a larger group approached him and demanded his phone and wallet. He told police that one of the teens pointed a knife at him.

What do you get when you combine water, American persimmons and hops and ferment it with yeast? A beer based on a 300-year-old recipe scribbled in a cookbook kept by Virginia's prominent Randolph family. Ardent Craft Ales in Richmond recently brewed "Jane's Percimon Beer" unearthed from the book in the Virginia Historical Society's collections from the 1700s that contains food, medicinal remedies and beer recipes. The formula for the Colonial-era concoction is one of thousands of alcoholic recipes in the society's collection that provide a glimpse into what Virginians and others were drinking in the 18th century and other points...