by Brian Smyth

Responding to a New Year's editorial in the Raleigh, NC newspaper, a group of 22 homebrewers and beer enthusiasts met at the offices of All About Beer magazine in Durham earlier this month to organize a grass roots campaign. Their purpose: to change the alcohol limit on beers and malt beverages sold in the state of North Carolina.

Currently, the statute regulating sales of alcohol includes the following definition of "malt beverage":

This will allow distributors and retailers to sell more styles and brands of beer in the state. By simply removing these words in the state definition, beer would be redefined as any malt beverage containing at least 0.5% alcohol by volume.

The state of Ohio changed a similar definition late last year, with favorable results. Beer lovers in Georgia have been lobbying for the same change as well, and hope to have legislation introduced this year. Ten states currently have definitions limiting the alcohol by volume of beer that can be sold in their state. Massachusetts and South Dakota limit their beers to less than 14% by volume. Thirty eight states, plus the District of Columbia, define beer with no mention of alcohol limits.

The Georgians for World Class Beer have listed the commercial beers not available for sale in their state. A truly world class list!!

The North Carolina group organized itself into the following committees: legislative, economic impact, grassroots development, industry affairs, and communications. They have named their campaign "Pop the Cap NC", with the subtitle "North Carolina Citizens for Sensible Beer Laws".

The group will meet again at the same location on Saturday, February 22nd. If you would like to volunteer your time and energy to this worthy campaign, please email the organizers and ask them what you can do to help.


You can't buy them, but you can brew them!!

Here's a suggested list of homebrews that are well over the 6% limit: