Beer Signs and More

When Government Figures Out The Huge Industry of Alcohol

CBS News

(AP)  HARRISON, Ark. — Dee Gusewelle used to rail against the sale of alcohol, posting signs in her yard and encouraging neighbors and passersby to keep booze out of this patch of northern Arkansas.

But now that her county has dumped its ban on the sale of alcohol, she and her husband are doing something that would have been unthinkable — and illegal — just months ago: opening a liquor store.

“It’s not like it’s going to be Sodom and Gomorrah,” Gusewelle said as customers lined up to buy beer at the gas station where she worked this summer.

For years, cities and counties across the South have been quietly throwing out Prohibition-era laws banning the sale of alcohol. But as local governments confront ever-greater budget problems, many are now tapping into booze as a source of untouched income. That means towns where preachers once condemned “demon rum” are now counting on six-packs and cheap wine to make up for declining revenue.

“It’s the same thing with the lottery,” Gusewelle said. “People didn’t want that. But then I see avid churchgoers that come in on Sundays and buy their lottery tickets.”

In Harrison, a city of 13,000 tucked between tourist attractions in the Ozark Mountains, stores began stocking beer and wine earlier this year. Liquor stores are slated to open in the coming months.

The city hopes to collect up to $200,000 a year from alcohol-related sales taxes and fees once spirits hit the shelves. That will account for about 1 percent of the total annual budget.

Local officials say the availability of alcohol encourages visitors to stay longer — or at least long enough to polish off a beer. Lodging is up 25 percent so far this year compared with the same period in 2010, when voters approved a measure to shift the county from “dry” to “wet.”

When the area was dry, many tourists cruising along the region’s curvy highways kept driving after realizing they couldn’t wash down a rack of ribs with a cold brew.

Now convenience stores peddle lagers and ales, and a former feed store sells wine in flavors and colors that sound as if they belong in a bag of Skittles — wild cherry, sunshine pink, blue Hawaiian. Officials hope the change will also attract chain restaurants and other companies that typically avoid investing in dry counties.

“We’re a pretty poor county, and we just can’t afford to say we don’t want anyone’s business,” said Gerald Ragland, the city’s finance director.

But for years, they did just that. Anyone craving a cold beer or a glass of wine in Boone County had to cross the county line or head north to Missouri, where liquor laws are less restrictive.

After Prohibition ended in 1933, dry laws popped up in counties and municipalities across the nation. Like the laws they replaced, the restrictions controlled the sale of alcohol, not consumption.

“People are going to drink regardless,” Antone Zeller said before buying a 30-pack of Keystone Ice at the Harrison convenience store where Gusewelle worked. “It doesn’t matter how far you’ve got to go to get it. So you might as well just get it here and keep our money here.”

Zeller didn’t know what a dry county was when he moved here from Shreveport, La., about 15 years ago. But he quickly learned. For him, it meant a long drive to stock up on booze. And while he was out of the county, Zeller would often spend money on other things.

“We’d eat. We’d buy gas,” he said. “But now for the most part, all my money stays here.”

Some people who fought to keep the county dry say easier access to alcohol fuels underage drinking and raises crimes rates.

“Tax revenue doesn’t make up for loss of quality of life,” said Ralph Hudson, a real estate broker in Harrison who sought to keep the county dry, just as it had been for more than half a century.

Others share his beliefs and post them on church signs here. One, across the road from McDonald’s, told people that Jesus, not Budweiser, is the “light.”

But supporters of the change say forbidding alcohol did little to prevent problems — and sometimes contributed to them.

For instance, Zeller said, when he had to drive elsewhere to buy booze, he often bought in bulk.

“Normally, it actually worked out bad because I would drink more,” he said.

Fears that alcohol would overtake the community didn’t materialize, either.

“They thought there was going to be a bar on every corner,” said Terry Cook, who runs the visitors bureau. “But there’s not.”

There were alcohol-related arrests long before the county permitted alcohol sales, and there hasn’t been a spike since the law changed.

“Nobody’s drinking any more than they did, but they’re driving a lot less now,” Ragland said.

Elsewhere across the South, counties and towns that permitted limited alcohol sales are easing their laws, too, often dispensing with rules that prohibited sales on Sunday.

In Texas, 418 out of 542 ballot questions on alcohol sales have gone wet since 2004, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, a trade group. And more alcohol issues are likely to appear on ballots this fall.

Besides addressing economic needs, the shift in liquor laws mirrors a change in consumer demographics since Prohibition.

“In today’s economy, consumers are out shopping on Sundays,” said Ben Jenkins, a council spokesman. “It’s inconvenient to have to drive to a different county to buy alcohol.”

Beer Event Ideas For Your New Home Bar

Let’s say that you have just finished putting the final pieces together and your home bar is ready to entertain. But, you don’t want to just have people over. You want to do it in style. These ideas will work whether you are having a bar warming, or if it has been awhile since you have had friends over and you want to do something special for the occasion.

Beer Tasting

I have thrown some generic beer tastings together where my friends each brought what they thought was the best and everyone there gave each beer an honest try. It’s fun. There’s not too much work involved. But, there is a way better way of throwing a beer tasting.

You can either make your own beer or invite someone who does make beer. Let them put their beer on display and make a big thing of it. Have other beers there. But, the one that gets highlighted is the one that was homemade. That’s something that will really put some excitement into the beer tasting and get your friends over in drogues.

Beer Games

Of course, just being able to drink a nice cold beer with the game on in a bar setting is an awesome time of itself. But, add some beer games and you’ve got some real beer enthusiasm. There are plenty of games you can play. Of course, remember to drink responsibly.

The greatest beer game going today is beer pong. Obviously, you can have a professional beer pong table and really make an official game out of it. But, beer pong is just as fun when your friends are creating impossible shots that only experts on their best day can nail. Make sure you have some great surfaces ready. Tops of bar stools work. But, you’ll want blocks, boards, bowls, pipes, sticks and everything else that can contribute to very imaginative shots.

Kangaroo Court

This is a unique idea that I didn’t come up with, but I did incorporate the idea from my military life to my civilian life when I built my first home bar. Kangaroo Court is a fun court setting with judges, plaintiffs and defendants. A plaintiff will put a defendant on the stand and the rest of the people in the room will act as the judge like how a jury decides a case. What cases will they be solving?

Nothing serious. The plaintiff is allowed to bring up anything. The plaintiff can tell everyone in the room about a very embarrassing moment in the defendant’s life. Of course, the defendant gets a chance to speak. But, it’s almost like a day time talk show at this point. It’s hard to get the crowd on your side once they’ve already been turned. And it’s obvious what happens when the defendant loses or even better, if the defendant actually has the ability to turn the jury around and the plaintiff loses. The loser has to drink.

Your friends will always love your bar. You’ll always have good times there. But once in awhile, you just want to do something different and get everyone out of the habits they start to build. Make it an event.

Let’s Take A Closer Look At Homebrew Kits

As a beginner homebrewer, you will find that homebrew kits are perfect to get into the game. All your ingredients, and supplies are included so that you can start brewing your own tasty beer. It’s basically the easiest way to get started with home beer brewing… by choosing a homebrew kit to suit your needs.

Before you go and run out to buy yourself a homebrew kit, you will need to consider your needs. So how much beer do you want to brew? How technical do you want to get? What flavored beer do you want? Etc… Then once you decide on all the important things, you will need a home beer brewing guide to teach you the essentials because quiet simply, the instructions that come with homebrew kits are useless at best. Then once you are well informed, it’s time to buy your kit, clean your equipment, brew your beer, and then drink it (in simple terms).

There is a variant if you would want to determine the color of your beer, and the style of your brew – other than the classic canned beer taste. You can opt to have a different set of ingredients. These are still all-extract kits though as they give you preformulated ingredients.

All extract brewing is a fairly simple process because the boiling off certain ingredients to get certain flavors has already been done for you on a mass scale. As you gain experience, it is advisable to start with partial mash brewing for more refined flavors and textures of home brewed beer. As a partial mash brewer, you are involved in boiling ingredients, choosing specialty flavorings, and crafting your beer from start to finish… and this is a lot harder than simply adding the ingredients to a pot and stirring.

The hops are what determine the bitterness of your brew. You can then add the hops later in intervals to give your mix the difference from your neighbor’s – who also has an all-extract kit – beer. To give you a better ambiance while pouring youself a drink, some kits even have a keg system instead of the usual bottles.

Eventually, you’d get the hang of brewing beer from your kits. You want to experiment more, do more than your ingredients or your materials would allow or you would even want to decide to graduate your hobby to beer fanaticism or better, to a commercial brewery. But whatever extent you want to bring yourself to, start it first with the good old trusty homebrew kits.

Homebrew kits will assist you get introduced and become proficient at brewing beer at home. Luke Porter is an enthusiast brewer who is happy to share the in’s and out’s of brewing kits available in the shops today.