Death To Taxes

Jared — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 20:21:29 +0000

Around Oregon people are celebrating the death of the democrats beer tax increase today. Although not officially dead it looks like support wont magically appear. Oregon did increase taxes on tons of other things though, but that’s not unusual. At least they didn’t touch my beer. Since I’m not a corporation or exceptionally wealthy I don’t have to worry on that end. Here is a gem of a comment I found on the Oregonian article.

In heaven they have no beer
that’s why we drink it here
and in heaven they have no tax
’cause hell is for democrats

Falling In Love With A Comment

Jared — Fri, 08 May 2009 07:49:37 +0000

Back on the 6th my blog, and some other blogs I read were twitted in part because of our responses to the I Am A Craft Brewer vid on Vimeo. This led to an avalanche of comments on all these blogs, and some were more interesting then others. One in particular had an effect on me, and it takes alot for someones words to stir me into a Passion. It was submitted by David Berg of August Schell brewing. Strangely it was meant for the blog of a lady named Maureen who happened to be on the Beer Wars panel (she was the infamous El Guapo who said “see me in ten years”). It couldn’t have fallen in better hands though as he accidentally posted it at Jeff Alworths blog Beervana. Jeff has written a bit on this quandary facing the brewers association (here and here, oh yeah, and he talks about Widmer getting kicked from “craft beer” here) to see Jeff’s post on David’s comment click here.

Without anything further on my part here is what David wrote.

Hey Maureen-

“I was a craft brewer.” That’s the movie I want to make. Because, I was at one time, according to the BA and the video. But alas, I work for August Schell now, and we are not craft brewers (just ask the BA). Never mind the fact that we will celebrate our 150th year in 2010 as the second-oldest family owned brewery in the US. We survived prohibition, a Native American uprising that burned New Ulm to the ground, and the vanishing of regional breweries in the 70’s and 80’s. Forget the fact that we sold a tree on our grounds in the 80’s to pay the bills. Discount that we brewed a German Pilsner and Weizen in 1986.

Because, the fact is, the bulk of our production uses corn as an adjunct. And even if you discount that beer, we would still produce a larger volume of non-adjunct beers than most of the top craft breweries. But hey, what does that matter?

No, I am not a craft brewer, and I’ll happily be that for another 150 years.

Cheers!

David Berg
August Schell Brewing

Cheers David

TheWeeklyBrew.com - The Ramblings of a Kitchen Chemist » Beautiful Words

Death To Taxes

Falling In Love With A Comment