BREAKING NEWS: SB153 passes the Senate.
Kudos to you if you called and thanks for writing notes to the Senators at the last meeting. It worked!

Things were touch and go yesterday for a while. The bill passed the Budget Isolation Resolution vote (a procedural vote that all bills must go through before they’re voted on for passage) but then failed the vote on passage. Later in the day, it was revisited, amended, and passed!

Here is the amendment on page 2:

6 (c) Not more than 20 gallons of beer, mead, cider, or wine produced under this
7 section may be removed from the premises where it was produced
8 and may be transported for personal and noncommercial uses,

So we can’t move more than 20 gallons of beer around at a time. I’m sure everyone’s cool with that right?

Will keep you posted on what you can do to get this approved in the House.

Stone Smoked Porter

Zebra Clogs Traffic

Bear Republic Beers

Here’s the email call to action from John Little. Come on folks, it only takes 45 seconds to make the two phone calls.

Please take 10 seconds to make a call to Senator Ted Little’s office in Montgomery. The number is (334) 242-7865.
His secretary will answer. Just leave a message for Senator Little asking for his help bringing SB153 (legalizing homebrewing) up for a Senate floor vote. Be sure she knows that you are an Auburn (or Opelika, Lee County, etc) resident.
It is quick and painless, and the Senators give much more weight to residents of their own district.
If you feel like making another call, the most important Senator to contact is Lowell Barron (334-242-7858).
Thank you for your help. We actually have a chance to get to a floor vote today or tomorrow, but we really need everyone’s help in urging the decision makers to bring this bill up for a vote.

Dogfish Head Pangaea
John Little’s Homebrew Call To Arms
I should have done this research before shooting the episode, but here’s the list of materials from each continent.

Australia – Crystallized ginger
Antarctica – Water
Asia – Basmati rice
Africa – Muscavado sugar
South America – quinoa
Europe – yeast
North America – maize

The maize, rice, sugar (maybe even the quinoa) give you the light body and crispness of this beer, and I’m really curious as to the volume of Antarctic ice that was transported to DFH HQ.

Very cool concept.

For Valentine’s Day, I fall in love with Brooklyn Local 2.

You’ll notice the new recommend buttons in the title, please recommend this to your friends on StumbleUpon, Facebook, or Digg.

Check out John Little’s excellent post on what you can do to get SB153 to the floor for a vote here.

Brooklyn Brewery

The Yeti absolutely assaults my tastebuds…in a good way.

Great Divide Brewing Company

Also, I’m really excited to announce I’ll be teaching beer education classes for the next few months with the Fine folks at Fine Wine and Beer By Gus in Auburn. Check out the announcement. Hope to see you there.

Who Dat ladies and gents? I’m sorry to fanboy it up again for the Saints, but the Super Bowl drought is older than I am. Huge game coming up.

As far as the odds and ends go, check out John Little’s excellent post on what you can do to get the Homebrewing Legalization Bill moving.

What’s all this craziness regarding gambling in Alabama? A Businessweek article explores this

Abita Abbey Ale

For anyone interested and local to the Auburn, AL area, I’ll be doing beer education classes for the next 11 weeks in conjunction with Fine Wine and Beer by Gus. You can check out the details on their website. We’re going to have tons of fun and learn all about your favorite beverage.

I find out how difficult corks really are to remove.

Pietra
UPDATE: The dude with the headband is actually a symbol on the Corsican flag.

For those of you with Netflix who want to learn all kinds of coolness about the way the US beer industry works, check out Beer Wars which is available as both “Play Now” and “Send Me The Disc” options.