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POTTSVILLE, Pa. (AP) - When Richard "Dick" Yuengling Jr. first took a job at his family's brewery as a teenager, his grandfather's secretary discreetly gave him this advice: "You ought to go out and do something else, because we're barely making payroll." That was more than 50 years ago, long before he purchased America's oldest brewery from his father to become the fifth-generation owner of D.G. Yuengling and Son. After 26 years at the helm, Dick Yuengling is doing a lot better than making payroll. Yuengling is one of the fastest-growing and most coveted brands in the beer industry. And...

BBQ and beer what can be better.

HEALTH activists who believe even one alcoholic drink can cause cancer are lobbying MPs in Canberra today for limits on how much we consume and how much we pay for it. If they're successful in branding alcohol a carcinogen it could lead to tough restrictions similar to those applied to tobacco, including warnings on labels and laws requiring plain packaging. 1.18pm Action on labelling was "not what the agenda of this group is on about today", said Todd Harper, chief executive of the Cancer Council of Victoria. "We do want to see a more comprehensive approach to alcohol, better education,...

In recent weeks, Gov. Rick Snyder has appointed two new members to the five-person Michigan Liquor Control Commission, and the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs announced the creation of a new committee to review existing wine, beer and liquor market rules and recommend changes. Any changes should place consumer interests ahead of both state government interests and those of the 60-plus beer and wine wholesalers and distributors who dot the state with their territorial monopolies. For the uninitiated, Michigan is one of 18 so-called “control” states, in which the government is the initial buyer of all of the hard...

A boozy Brooklyn man was hit with hate crime charges Sunday for pouring beer on a newlywed neighbor, calling her an "Arab terrorist" and pummeling her husband, police sources said. Following the seemingly unprovoked attack Saturday night in Mill Basin, Simchon Schwartz, 46, hid in a local synagogue and tried to fight off cops when they came to arrest him, sources said. The Hasid even kicked out a window of a police cruiser as he sat inside, whining that "the cuffs are too tight," a source said. "F---ing Arabs! F---ing terrorists!" Schwartz screamed when he grabbed his neighbor, Selda Turan,...

A mother accused of leaving her 3-year-old son unattended at a pool Wednesday while she apparently drank beer — using money an 11-year-old girl gave her to buy ice cream — was arrested on a child neglect charge, according to an affidavit released Thursday. The case against Kelly Lynn Chaffee, 22, began Wednesday night when a man spoke with Port St. Lucie police at a pool in the 1900 block of Southeast Hillmoor Drive. The man said his 14-year-old stepdaughter had a 3-year-old at his home. He said a woman later identified as Chaffee left her 3-year-old son at the...

As revealed in Michigan Capitol Confidential last week, a state beer and wine distribution monopoly that successive Legislatures have protected for decades enriches a handful of families (the so-called “Millionaires Club”) at the expense of consumers, taxpayers and small business microbrewers, whose ability to create jobs is also hurt. Over the years legislators have played partner to the distributors, collecting a share of their monopoly profits through steady streams of campaign cash and other benefits. So perhaps members of the state House shouldn’t be surprised if microbrewers don’t feel overly grateful for a meaningless piece of puff they passed this...

By Spencer Soper, OF THE MORNING CALL 4:51 p.m. EDT, June 21, 2011 Pottsville beer-maker D.G. Yuengling and Son, America's oldest brewery, plans to enter the Ohio market later this year. Pat Noone, the company's business development manager, told the Akron Beacon Journal that Yuengling has been in discussions with retailers and distributors in the state and it could be available in Ohio as soon as October. The company has been eager to enter the Ohio market, but wanted to make sure it had an adequate supply of beer to accommodate demand, Noone told the newspaper. The company on Tuesday...

The president’s letter in the January-February edition of the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers newsletter suggests that association members are not primarily motivated by economic self-interest, but are merely active supporters of public safety. He then offered to sell the Mackinac Bridge to potential buyers at an excellent price. OK, just kidding about the bridge. But the absurdity of the “disinterestedness” suggestion was indirectly revealed in the president’s letter, writing on a state of Washington effort to privatize the state’s liquor control regime and reform beer and wine distribution by repealing that state’s distributor monopoly. Reportedly, the initiative was financially...

The Mackinac Center’s Ken Braun and Kathy Hoekstra have documented how the wine and beer distribution monopolies that Michigan has granted to a handful of families damage entrepreneurs and investors in the micro-brewery industry. The Center’s Michael LaFaive has reported how an obsolete regulatory regime on hard liquor generates prices that exceed those in neighboring Indiana by more than 20 percent. This system generates losses for the Michigan economy that probably amount to tens of millions of dollars. Part of that goes into the pockets of a few monopoly distributors who have spent lavishly over many decades lobbying legislators to...

A man told Pasco County Sheriff's deputies he had about 10 beers too many as he celebrated his birthday. Fifty-eight-year-old James Taylor says he drank 48 beers on Thursday evening, prompting a stern lecture from a deputy for causing a disturbance at Hudson Beach. Read: James Taylor's arrest affidavit (PDF) Officials say Taylor, a transient, left the beach. But he came back, and officials say this time he caused such a ruckus that he scared a woman and her young grandchildren. An arrest report states that Taylor exposed his genitals and "urinated in the middle of the sand." He also...

Most residents would be surprised to learn that under the current system, the state of Michigan buys all the liquor, or “spirits,” distributed here. Our government, via the Liquor Control Commission, slaps its own price markup on liquor before imposing an array of taxes and price controls, effectively protecting the state distribution monopoly. Residents should insist that the Michigan Legislature take a hard look at this costly and cumbersome system it has protected for decades, in large part because of the excessive political influence of a small handful of individuals who profit from the status quo. No one would design...

Should beer have to travel 100 miles before it can be sold at a store or restaurant...that's right across the street from the brewer? This scenario is entirely plausible due to Prohibition-era laws in Michigan that created a "Three-Tier" distribution system overseen by the Michigan Liquor Control Commission. In the video see how these archaic and rigid laws are hurting beer entrepreneurs in the state's ever-growing and well-repected craft-beer industry.

If you thought leaving a spouse was tough, just be thankful that you’re not a brewery in need of a divorce from your dead-beat distributor. A recently released video from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy explains how the mandatory three-tier system for alcohol distribution has resulted in an acrimonious relationship between brewers and wholesalers and the deleterious effects it has had on the state’s market.

Amongst the decade-plus wreckage that has been the Michigan economy, there is an industry of 80 small businesses that have quietly carved out a success story. A February MLive profile tallied up $70 million in business expansions and job creation currently being invested in this state by these quiet capitalists. They didn’t do it with help and special deals from government economic planning czars trying to pick winners and losers, and they’re individually too small to credibly cry for taxpayer bailouts when the bottom line goes bad. Indeed, in a tale all too typical of Michigan businesses that decide to...

The Discovery Channel found South Chicago Heights yesterday. A television crew from Discovery was in town to film a piece for a program called "Outrageous Final Wishes." The focus was on Bill Bramanti, who in 2008 had a coffin designed to look like a Pabst Blue Ribbon beer can. The episode featuring Bramanti is expected to air toward the end of the year. "In 2004, I had, I believe it was my fourth heart attack," Bramanti said. "And it was a good one." Bramanti figured he would make things easier for his family by making his final arrangements in advance....

Amongst the decade-plus wreckage that has been the Michigan economy, there is an industry of 80 small businesses that have quietly carved out a success story. A February MLive profile tallied up $70 million in business expansions and job creation currently being invested in this state by these quiet capitalists. They didn’t do it with help and special deals from government economic planning czars trying to pick winners and losers, and they’re individually too small to credibly cry for taxpayer bailouts when the bottom line goes bad. Indeed, in a tale all too typical of Michigan businesses that decide to...

"Now I knew that I had some roots across the Atlantic, but until recently I could not unequivocally claim that I was one of those Irish-Americans," President Obama said in Dublin, Ireland on Monday evening.

This is what I'm having. Ruination: ru*in*a*tion\noun The act of ruining or the condition of being ruined;a server state of being damaged;destruction achieved by wrecking.

Wherever man has ventured, beer has followed. Now, two Australian entrepreneurs hope that will include space. The pair have developed a full-bodied brew they believe can stand up to the trials of being drunk in zero gravity. Problems faced by astronauts include swelling of the tongue with a loss of taste sensation, but it is hoped that space engineers have developed the perfect beer to counter this. Jaron Mitchell, who owns the 4 Pines Brewing Company, a microbrewery, said: It's going to be the first beer that will be specifically designed to be drunk in zero gravity with upcoming space...