Friday Beer Post: The Guv and 3.2 beer

Warning: semi-political. If you'd rather not concern yourself with such matters, feel free to move on.

Governor Hickenlooper kicked up a storm this week over the redefining of the rules related to 3.2 beer testing.  A law has been in place that requires that no beer sold in restaurants bars and liquor stores may contain less than 3.2% alcohol by weight or 4% by volume.  Sales of these beers were reserved for convenience stores and supermarkets. A law passed last year was aimed at reinforcing the existing law with a rules process requiring testing to ensure that beer sold in these business complied with the old law.

The rules process that had been worked on for months placed the onus of testing on the brewer, and for the breweries to pass the test results onto the state.  The Colorado Brewers Guild complained to the Governor's office that the law was intrusive, and was essentially an surtax on them for producing quality beer.  In response, the Governor changed the rules, shortening and simplifying them to, instead of requiring testing on the brewers end, allow the Division of Liquor Enforcement to test any suspect beer.

It's a simple shift of the onus of testing from the brewer to the state.  Since, as Governor Hickenlooper would point out, the old rule disproportionally penalizes small breweries in requiring them to expensively test the product, the rules, which had been intended as a protection for the status quo, had become a punitive surtax on small business to the benefit of giant convenience and supermarket conglomerates (most of whom are from anywhere but Colorado).

The fact is, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers, a Republican mind you, signed off on Democratic Governor Hickenlooper's reassessment of the rules; that his shortening of the testing rules from 7 pages to 1 paragraph still complied with the law as passed.  This is what executives do; they define the enforcement of the laws, and even the opposition party Attorney General gave the move a pass. The Legislature may huff and puff all they want, but it's perfectly legal.  Maybe not politically tactful, since it's a sensitive political topic right now, but still legal.

While this story didn't get a whole lot of attention over the past week, I noted it for a couple of reasons: just like I expected (and, not-for-nothing, voted for) the Governor is going to be very brewer, small business, and liquor store friendly, and he's not afraid to take action to support those groups.

Overall, I'm thrilled with this action.  I want Colorado to be the state with the friendliest craft brewer laws in the country.  It's part of the reason I supported Hick for Governor, and the thriving craft brewing culture in this state is a large part of the reason why I love living here.  The more Colorado can do to support the small business concerns of craft breweries and liquor stores, even at the expense of big-chain supermarkets and convenience stores, the better in my opinion.

I guarantee you that, were big chains to gain the ability to sell full strength beer, the craft industry in Colorado, supported by the numerous small liquor stores, would shrink in size dramatically. Whatever the Governor needs to do, legally of course, to prevent that is fine by me.

Happy Friday!