Wyoming lawmakers consider higher tax on beer

Wyoming beer drinkers: contact your state legislators to oppose this proposed 225% increase in the state beer tax.

CHEYENNE - Here's a tax increase sure to make people cry in their beer.



That's right: Lawmakers are considering a tax increase on beer, and proponents say the mental health and substance abuse treatment that would benefit are good causes.



Wyoming currently taxes beer at 2 cents per gallon. A draft bill before the Select Committee on Mental Health and Substance Abuse would raise that to 6.5 cents per gallon.

Read the entire article at the Billings Gazette.

Canadian Beer Drinkers Threaten Planet

I'll have to check to see if my beer fridge is Energy Star-rated now.

Scientists have found a new threat to the planet: Canadian beer drinkers.



The government-commissioned study says the old, inefficient "beer fridges" that one in three Canadian households use to store their Molson and Labatt's contribute significantly to global warming by guzzling gas- and coal-fired electricity.

Read the entire article at Fox News.

Around the world in 60 pubs

This is my kind of vacation! Maybe next year...

1. London


2. Düsseldorf


3. Praha


4. Maria Alm


5. München


6. Reykjavik


7. Phuket


8. Auckland


9. Queenstown


10. Honolulu


11. Cancun

You can find all the details at World's Biggest Pub Crawl.

Thou shalt not buy too much of our beer

Westvleteren: the best beer you'll probably never taste.

In bars from Brussels to Boston, and online, it sells for more than $15 for an 11-ounce bottle -- 10 times what the monks ask -- if you can get it.



For the 26 monks at St. Sixtus, however, success has brought a spiritual hangover as they fight to keep an insatiable market in tune with their life of contemplation.



The monks are doing their best to resist getting bigger. They don't advertise and don't put labels on their bottles. They haven't increased production since 1946. They sell only from their front gate. You have to make an appointment and there's a limit: two, 24-bottle cases a month. Because scarcity has created a high-priced gray market online, the monks search the net for resellers and try to get them to stop.



"We sell beer to live, and not vice versa," says Brother Joris, the white-robed brewery director. Beer lovers, however, seem to live for Westvleteren.

Read the entire article at the Wall Street Journal. Thanks to Bryce Hinsch for the link!

Last orders for Guinness?

Granted, Guinness isn't the beer it used to be. It's lighter and less flavorful than it was 15 or 20 years ago, back when it was my favorite beer. Then again, maybe that's why their business has been declining all this time. And if that's the case, Guinness Red ain't gonna help.

Guinness is one of Britain's best loved brands, yet sales of the famous black stout have been falling year after year both in the UK and Ireland.



But with nearly 250 years of history behind it, Guinness is not about to go quietly.



It has launched a fight back with a new lighter, sweeter version, Guinness Red, and a much hyped multi-million pound advertising campaign.



Will it be enough to reverse the decline?

Read the entire obituary at the BBC.

Man shoots goat after wife wouldn't bring him beer

That'll teach it.

WAUPACA — A rural New London man faces charges for killing one of his family's two pet goats after he became upset with his wife for not buying beer.

It goes on to say that the man "was arrested later that day at a local bar". Big surprise there. (How I do miss Wisconsin!)

Read the rest of this wacky story at the Oshkosh Northwestern

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Celebrate Repeal Day!

Prohibition in the United States was ended by the ratification of the 21st Amendment to the Constitution on December 5, 1933.

Amendment XXI



Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.



Section 2. The transportation or importation into any state, territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.



Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several states, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Congress.

So raise a glass of your favorite libation today in honor of Repeal Day!