I recently picked up a copy of the inaugural edition of a new beer magazine called The Beer Connoisseur. It is a pretty good rag with several good beer reviews, features on a few breweries, some beer and food articles and a great feature on Anchor Brewing, Fritz Maytag, and the start of the American Craft Beer Industry. Hell, they even mentioned WV's own Forks of the Cheat Winery in an article titled "Life Outside of Beer". But one article in particular got me thinking. It was the very last article of the magazine called "The State vs. Beer" which was about all the archaic laws still in existence throughout the US.

This article made me both happy and sad at the same time. Right now I am going to tell you why it made me sad.

A big focus of the one page article was the recent trend of raising the alcohol limits in several states. They mention Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama and the recent change in their laws. But there was no mention of West Virginia. I got to thinking about it, and this seems to be a common thing. Every non local article I have read regarding raising alcohol limits, be it in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Beer Advocate, or The Beer Connoisseur, either only mentions WV in passing or fails to mention us at all. So I asked myself, "Self, why is this?" and the only answer I can come up with is that we, the Craft Beer drinkers and residents of WV have not made enough noise.

While other states formed non-profit, grassroots organizations like NC's Pop the Cap, or Alabama's Free the Hops, or even Mississippi's Raise Your Pints (which is still struggling to convince their lawmakers to make the change), we sit back and left it up to the lobbyist representing big beer. There were some feeble attempts by some (myself included) in years past to organize and make our voices heard, but for whatever reason those attempts seemed to fizzle out. This year while the legislature was in session, once again the wheels were put in motion, and several people showed interest. However, by the time we started to organize it seemed the fight was over.

You see this year we had an unforeseen ally. An ally who in the past had been out biggest enemy and that was the West Virginia Beer Wholesalers Association (WVBWA). That’s right folks the Big Beer folks did not want this to happen in years past. They argued that it was irresponsible to raise the alcohol limit, that it would lead to more drinking and driving, more underage drinking, etc. But those people saw the light this year. It would be speculation to say that they were influenced by the purchase of Anheuser Busch by InBev. You see the WVBWA is mostly made up of and controlled by the AB distributors. After AB was purchased by InBev, the combined portfolio contains many brews that were illegal here under the 6% cap. So all of the sudden the lobbyist representing the WVBWA has done a complete 180 on his stance on this bill. The bottom line is although I am not happy about the reasons it passed, I am very thankful for the end result.

However, I digress. I did not intend to rant about the WVBWA. I intended to rant about our collective lack of involvement in getting things changed. I truly believe that if we, as citizens, had organized and fought to change the 6% cap we would be seeing more new options on the shelves by now. Alabama and Free the Hops was constantly in the Beer Press. They were constantly catching the attention of those who stay informed in the Beer World including Brewers. As a result, the day their law changed, they had new breweries waiting to come into their state. WV? Well, Joose was the first thing on our shelves.

Changing the 6% law was a huge step in making WV a Better Beer Step, but it is only a step. There are many more things that need to happen before we are going to have the luxury of going to our local pub and having the choice of 40 or 50 taps and a couple cask beers. Charleston is not going to be featured in an issue of Beer Advocate as a Beer Destination anytime soon.

So what can we do?

The bottom line is that we need to get involved if we want to see things improve. It is not going to happen on its own. The truth is, the majority of West Virginians have no clue that we are missing anything in the beer aisle, or could care less as long as they have their fizzy yellow water. We are the ones that have to make the change happen.

Cheers!

Travis