Bottle Conditioned

Thanks Tennessee. Way to ruin an otherwise great beer tasting event.

Mollie and I attended a tasting tonight, hosted by a distributor here in Nashville, that was spotlighting Appalachian Beer Company. We arrived early at the beer store hosting the tasting, and decided to grab a beer while we waited. We grabbed a couple beers (mine was the Harviestoun Brewery Old Engine Oil and hers the Chocolate Stout by Fort Collins Brewery), paid for them, and proceeded to the lounge to grab a seat and enjoy our apertif before the tasting. We walked up and stopped at the spot where we normally grab a glass and pour the beer.

No glasses. Anywhere.

A quick inquiry to one of the employees revealed the truth: the health department had come by earlier and demanded they stop serving beer in glasses until they purchase a separate license. No pouring a beer from a bottle to a glass. Customer can’t pour their own; customer can’t bring their own serving vessel. Nothing. No glassware. Period. (In fact, this goes for not just glassware, but plastic, etc… ANY container whatsoever.)

Dismayed, I pressed further for an explanation. Evidently, according to the state law, beer cannot be transferred from one vessel (a bottle) to another (a glass) without proper licensing. Sure, you can serve it to patrons in a bottle, but god forbid you put it in a glass.

Say it with me….”What?!”

Yeah. Ridiculous. As I continued through the tasting, drinking beer from a bottle like a college frat kid, the gravity of the situation stewed on me. What kind of logic dictates this type of law?

I’ll answer that…none.

This, to me, is about nothing but money. Money to fill the state coffers by taxing alcohol in a backhanded and unfounded manner. Enter the neo-prohibitionists.

I’ll blog more about the tasting later, but I don’t feel like I can give an accurate review of the beer, as I was relegated to drinking out of a 1″ glass hole. I don’t blame the shop necessarily, as they are working hard to get the proper permits in place so that they will have glassware for their next tasting (a Sam Adams tasting in two weeks). I applaud them for the quick action to correct this problem.

What really irks me is the gall of the state lawmakers to craft laws that have absolutely zero basis in logic, but then, I suppose that’s the mantra of most government workings.

I realize this is a pretty scattered rant, but it’s getting late and I haven’t had much time to put this together in my head in a nice organized manner. Suffice to say, it bothered me enough that I wanted to write something tonight in order to assure I sleep a bit better.

Here’s what I want from you, the reader of this blog (all 2 of you): Tell me, under what line of logic can you base a law that requires a special permit in order to transfer beer from a bottle to a glass? Are we honestly that caught up in legislative red tape that our beer stores can’t even serve a beer correctly? This is where politics starts to really affect beer, and we’ve got to make sure it doesn’t get any more ridiculous than this.

So, tell me… how does this law make sense? I’m eager to read the responses.

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