Fans of Mellow Mushroom’s beer menu have lost an outlet to express their enthusiasm, at least in Alabama.

The state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board recently informed the Atlanta-based pizza chain that its beer clubs program goes against state rules governing the sale of alcohol.

David Peacock, an ABC Board attorney, said the program ran counter to a rule that says retailers “cannot have any kind of inducement to encourage on-premise alcohol consumption.”

Mellow Mushroom’s 148 franchises in 17 states, mostly in the Southeast, are known for offering a wide selection of beer, especially craft brands. That’s true also at its 14 Alabama locations. (A 15th is planned for Decatur, according to the company’s website.)

A representative at Mellow Mushroom’s Atlanta headquarters declined to comment for this story.

The clubs have different guidelines at each location, but typically offer T shirts, mugs, and recognition on a plaque for customers who register and order a certain number of the varieties of beer offered.

Terry Phillis Sr., general manager of the chain’s Oxford franchise, said word came down from the corporate office to end the program “three or four weeks ago” after it had run for about two years.

Customers in the Oxford beer club were promised souvenir mugs and the inclusion of their names on a board at the restaurant for trying 45 of the 125 beers on the menu.

Phillis said he didn’t think the program encouraged customers to drink any more beer than they would have otherwise, but instead to try something different.

“It’s kind of ridiculous when you think about it,” he said of the ABC Board rule.

Peacock said the rule barring the clubs is in Alabama Administrative Code, Section 20-X-6-.12. That section prohibits retailers from offering “anything of value as a premium or  present, to induce the purchase of such alcoholic beverages, or for any other purpose whatsoever in connection with the sale of such alcoholic beverages.”

“That regulation is pretty specific,” Peacock said.

Phillis said customers in Oxford have been upset by the move, but have directed their ire at regulators rather than Mellow Mushroom.

“They’re all very disappointed,” he said. He said he had no quarrel with ABC Board employees enforcing the rule, who he said have been helpful in training restaurant staff to serve alcohol responsibly.   

“We’re definitely not trying to entice people to drink more than they should,” Phillis said. “We  take great care.”

OK, Calhoun County beer fans, I need a little help here. I'm working on a piece about the larger-size bottles that became legal in Alabama back on Aug. 1, and I need to know what you've seen for sale in our area. I know I've seen Back 40's Freckle Belly IPA and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale in 22-ounce bottles at the Grub Mart in Jacksonville. I also spotted one of the Rogue varieties at the new Chevron at the Oxford Exchange back in October, but when I returned this weekend it was gone.

What's on offer at your favorite bottle stop? Leave me a comment below, or email me at bcunningham@annistonstar.com. 

After I posted the news about plans for a brewpub in downtown Anniston, the folks at Huntsville’s Yellowhammer Brewing wondered on Twitter whether the Model City could make a case for a different nickname.

"@cunningham_star: Anniston could soon become home to a new brewpub. annistonstar.com/bookmark/20258… " 2 brewpubs? Another candidate Beer City, Ala.?

— Yellowhammer Brewing (@YellowhammerAle) September 25, 2012

Calhoun County’s existing brewpub, Patriot Joe’s at Heroes, is actually in Weaver, but the Yellowhammer folks allowed that it’d be fair to award the title based on breweries in a metro area (especially since, if Huntsville is to contend for the title, they’ll want to count Blue Pants Brewing, which is in Madison, as they noted).

That got me thinking that it wouldn’t be very hard to settle the matter. Yellowhammer obviously is giving the Anniston area credit for multiple breweries despite having a much smaller population than the Rocket City. Counting breweries per capita does, in fact seem a fair way to go.

The Brewers Association tracks the breweries per capita numbers for each state and the District of Columbia; Vermont’s got the most, with 26,073 residents per each brewery in the state, followed by Oregon, Colorado, Montana and Maine. Alabama ranked 50th in 2011, followed by dead-last Mississippi, though we have added several breweries since they counted.

So what’s the beer capital of Alabama? That’s pretty easy to figure out. First, a little methodology: I used the Census Bureau’s 2011 population estimates for Alabama’s metropolitan statistical areas. (Wait, what’s an MSA? These areas are defined by the federal government for statistical purposes. They each have a “core urban area” of at least 50,000 residents. The Anniston-Oxford MSA is basically just Calhoun County, with 117,797 residents.) Next, what counts as a brewery? Some of Alabama’s smaller breweries don’t actually have facilities of their own, and rent time and space from their fellow brewers. But most of these contract brewers do have an identifiable hometown where their sales are concentrated. Based on breweries that I know are actually making and selling beer in Alabama right now, here’s how the cities stack up:

1. Gadsden, 1 brewery, population 104,303 = 104,303 people per brewer

Back Forty

2. Huntsville, 4 breweries, population 425,480 = 106,370 p.p.b.

Blue Pants, Old Black Bear, Straight to Ale, Yellowhammer

3. Anniston-Oxford, 1 brewery, population 117,797 = 117,797 p.p.b.

Patriot Joe’s/Heroes

4. Birmingham-Hoover, 4 breweries, population 1,132,264 = 283,066 p.p.b.

Avondale, Beer Engineers, Cahaba, Good People

5. Montgomery, 1 brewery, population 378,608 = 378,608 p.p.b.

Railyard

Gadsden gets the crown, but Yellowhammer’s question was whether two brewpubs would make Anniston the state’s beer headquarters. It seems that if you’re going to count Cheaha Brewing, which still has a long way to go, you’ve got to count other breweries still in the planning stages. Some in the state apparently will open within a few days. So, adding to the list every planned Alabama brewery that has been publicly announced (that I’ve heard of), here are the rankings (not-yet-open breweries are listed beneath the cities):

1. Anniston-Oxford, 2 breweries, population 117,797 = 58,898.5 p.p.b.

(Cheaha)

2. Huntsville, 6 breweries, population 425,480 = 70,913.33 p.p.b.

(Salty Nutt, Below the Radar (restaurant open, net yet serving their own beer))

3. Gadsden, 1 brewery, population 104,303 = 104,303 p.p.b.

4. Columbus, Ga., 2 breweries, population 301,439 = 150,719.5 p.p.b.

(Phenix City, where Chattahoochee Brewing hopes to open soon, is in the Columbus MSA, where Cannon Brewpub is already open)

5. Daphne-Fairhope-Foley, 1 brewery, population 186,717 = 186,717 p.p.b.

(Fairhope Brewing. This is actually a micropolitan statistical area, which would require even more explanation, so I’ll skip it.)

6. Tusclaoosa, 1 brewery, population 221,553 = 221,553 p.p.b.

(Druid City)

7. Birmingham-Hoover, 4 breweries, population 1,132,264 = 283,066 p.p.b.

8. Montgomery, 1 brewery, population 378,608 = 378,608 p.p.b.

9. Mobile, 1 brewery, population 412,577 = 412,577 p.p.b.

(Middle Bay)

So, when Cheaha Brewing finally pours its first pint over on Walnut Street, Anniston could have a legitimate claim as the capital city of Alabama beer. What do you think? Is there a better way to rank Alabama’s beer cities? Have I missed anyone out there? Leave a comment below.

Click here to read more from The Bitter End.

Calhoun County already is home to the first Alabama brewpub to open since the Brewery Modernization Act of 2011. Soon it may boast two.

Cheaha Brewing Company asked the Anniston Planning Commission last week for zoning approval needed to open a restaurant and brewery at the site of the former Louisville & Nashville rail depot downtown, on Walnut Avenue.

Rodney Snider, who’s leading the effort to launch the downtown brewpub, didn’t want to say much more than that on the phone today. But he said the company expects to make announcements about its plans very soon.

The Planning Commission on Tuesday approved Cheaha Brewing’s request for conditional use of the site, which is zoned for light manufacturing. The depot dates to Anniston’s earliest days, opening in 1883, according to The Star’s archives. In 1996 Anniston architect Julian Jenkins and his wife Anita Jenkins renovated part of the space into a restaurant called Le Mama’s; that eatery was closed by 2002, according to old Star stories. County tax records available online show that Anniston developer Earlon McWhorter acquired the property in 2001.

Cheaha has for some time been a member of the Alabama Brewers Guild, a trade group for the state’s young but growing industry of independent brewers. Craft brewing at production breweries has grown immensely since Alabama began relaxing its beer laws in 2009. Brewpubs are beginning to take off, as well.

In July, Heroes, an existing restaurant in Weaver, began serving Patriot Joe’s Ales, brewed on-site by Jacksonville resident Joe Donahue. (Here's a story I wrote about Patriot Joe's.) That operation was at the time Alabama’s only operating brewpub, the first to open since Alabama changed its laws governing brewpubs in 2011. More brewpubs are in the works in Huntsville, Montgomery, Fairhope, Phenix City and Tuscaloosa.

Edit: I should give The Star's Anniston City Hall beat writer, Laura Camper, a big thanks for tipping me to this development.

Click here to read more from The Bitter End.

Hop City, the new Birmingham store that ran afoul of the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control board last week for stocking homrewing supplies, says it now has the ABC's OK to sell beer and wine.

Hop City owner Kraig Torres tweeted the news earlier today.

Proud to say we're now "legal" in AL - ABC Board just gave us our beer/wine license. We're finally set to open this week...on Thurs!

— Kraig Torres (@HopCity) September 24, 2012

Here's my post from Friday about Hop City's difficulty: ABC bottles up Hop City's homebrew plans

Click here to read more from The Bitter End. 

Alabama’s beer laws have been changing fast, but not fast enough for people who want to make beer themselves — or those who want to sell them the stuff to do it.

Count the folks at Hop City in the latter category.

Kraig Torres, who’s run a store by that name in Atlanta since 2009, planned to open a Birmingham location this week. On offer in the 5,500-square-foot shop on Third Avenue South: 1,200 varieties of bottled beer in all styles, fine wines, and draft beer for sampling on-site and to go in quart- and half-gallon-size bottles called growlers.

Not on the shelves in Birmingham: fermentation buckets, glass carboys, immersion chillers, instruction books, hops, malted barley nor yeast.

Agents from the Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board took some of those materials from the store Thursday after finding them on an inspection Wednesday required to get a license to sell beer and wine, according to David Peacock, an attorney with the ABC’s enforcement division. The agency required Torres to remove the rest from the site, he said.

Homebrewing is illegal in Alabama, though it’s a hobby pursued with a passion by an estimated 1 million enthusiasts across the country, according to the American Homebrewers Association. It’s legal in 48 other states; Mississippi’s the other one where it’s against the law.

Owning or selling plastic buckets, glass jugs, copper tubes, barley and hops isn’t necessarily illegal, according to Peacock. All of those can be normal “household items,” he said.

“When you take them all together … they become something else,” Peacock said.

Having all those things in one place with the intent to brew beer is against the law, he said. He pointed to a state law which says having or selling the stuff for “manufacturing any prohibited liquors or beverages” is a felony.

That means it’s a serious crime, punishable by no less than a year in prison.

Peacock said once the materials were removed from Hop City’s Birmingham location, the matter was cleared up, and that it won’t hurt the company’s license application. It’s expected Torres will get the license early next week.

Torres is keen to avoid arguing with the ABC’s version of events, but he’d believed there’d be no problem.

“This component of our business, we were always up front about it,” he said Friday afternoon. “The fact they decided to make an issue of it most certainly was a surprise.”

Peacock, meanwhile, said that Torres had been warned in advance that the materials couldn’t be sold.

Torres points out that other homebrew supply stores in Alabama stock and sell all the same items. Peacock, asked about other such stores, didn’t address the issue directly. Other Alabama stores that sell homebrewing supplies apparently don’t also sell commercially brewed beer, and therefore wouldn’t need an ABC license, meaning enforcement agents wouldn’t have had a reason to visit the stores.

Peacock said he was not aware of the agency taking action against individual hobby homebrewers. He had words of caution, however.

“If it’s not legal, it’s not legal.”

Growing business

Torres says he’s spent $600,000 getting the Birmingham location ready. He now expects it to open sometime next week.

In addition to the bottled beers, which Torres said will include every variety of beer available for sale in the state, there will be 60 draft taps for samples and filling growlers. Torres plans to host tasting events, as well.

It seems clear that there’s a market for the products Hop City wants to sell.

The changes in Alabama’s beer laws began in 2009, when the grassroots group Free the Hops succeeded in a years-long effort to get the state Legislature to allow beer that’s more than 6 percent alcohol by volume to be sold here. Since then, the group has won changes loosening restrictions on breweries and allowing the sale of the 22-ounce and 750-milliliter bottles favored by many craft brewers.

In the wake of those changes, craft brewing has taken off in Alabama, with as many as nine breweries operating in the state now, where there were none just a few years before.

“We’re really excited about the craft beer scene,” Torres said. ‘With the explosion of new breweries in Alabama, we think the market is ready for” a store like his, he said.

The plan is to have a staff that welcomes questions from people who are learning about the diversity and complexity of craft beer.

“We felt like there’s a hole in the retail scene for experienced beer people,” Torres said.

Gone from the plan for now is serving those who want to make beer themselves. Torres said sales of homebrewing equipment and supplies at the Atlanta store account for about 15 percent of Hop City’s business. He’d hoped for a similar ratio here.

The Birmingham store employs eight people now, and Torres hopes that will match Hop City’s workforce of 12 in Atlanta once it gets up to speed.

He said public support in the wake of ABC’s actions has been a boost.

“It’s great that the citizens of Alabama have expressed the outrage they did” over the incident, he said. “We can’t thank people enough for that.”

Right to Brew, a grassroots movement similar to the one that’s changed other Alabama beer laws came close to getting lawmakers to legalize homebrewing this spring. House Bill 354 passed the House of Representatives and was awaiting final passage by the Senate when the Legislature’s session ended in May.

Brant Warren, a Huntsville-area resident who’s one of the organizers of the legalization effort, framed the issue in business terms when asked about Hop City’s troubles.

“The legalization of homebrewing in Alabama will prevent such serious problems to small businesses from happening,” Warren wrote in an email Friday. “It is one of the major reasons driving so many citizens across the state to work with their representatives to change the law.”

Free the Hops echoed that in a statement the group issued Friday in the wake of Hop City’s difficulty.

“This issue doesn’t just matter to homebrewers,” the statement read, “it matters to small businesses who will lose out on revenue they could otherwise be making off equipment and ingredients for making beer and wine. And it matters to the future of local breweries in our state because most craft brewers start out homebrewing.”

So, I've been reading about hops, the amazing little flowers that give beer its bitterness. On a recent trip to Oregon, I visited a homebrewer who had two tall, magnificent bines growing from planters in his backyard.

Since I got back, I've been curious about the potential for growing hops here in Alabama. It's commonly repeated wisdom, apparently, that hops grow best between latitudes 35N and 55N. Wouldn't you know it, the 35th parallel is Alabama's northern border. However, there are plenty of reports online of hobbyists growing hops successfully well south of that line. 

Are you among those who've trained these clockwise-climbing creepers? If you're growing hops here in the Heart of Dixie, I'd love to hear from you. Drop me a line (or a bine?) at bcunningham -at- annistonstar.com, or leave a comment below. 

I paid a visit today to Back Forty Beer's brewery in downtown Gadsden, for an magazine story I'm working on. Brad Wilson showed me around, and I spoke at length with him, with founder Jason Wilson and with brewmaster Jamie Ray. Brad let me rummage around in this bag of Citra hops, which give Freckle Belly IPA much of its flavor.

Back Forty's working on getting the equipment and supplies to produce 22-ounce bottles at the Gadsden plant. It'll be a while yet,but Freckly Belly will be one of the first things to go in the bigger containers, Brad Wilson told me. (Containers bigger than 16 ounces became legal Aug. 1 under the Gourmet Bottle Act, approved by the Alabama Legislature this spring.)

I feel safe in assuming that most of America's beer consumption takes place on the weekends. Given that assumption, one of my favorite things to do on my old blog was to ask readers on Friday where, why and what they'd be drinking over the weekend. So, I'm bringing back "What's on tap?"

Where will you have a beer this weekend, and who'll be with you? What will you be sipping? Is it a special occasion? Leave your comments below to let your fellow readers know how beer will fit into your weekend. Perhaps it'll give some inspiration to those who haven't yet made plans.

That describes me pretty well - no big plans. There are a couple bottles of Sweetwater IPA left in my fridge. This weekend is the Southern Brewer's Festival in Chattanooga; if I can get my lawn mowed and my wife interested, maybe we'll make the drive to the Scenic City. Anyone else going?

 

I stopped by Cooter Brown's Rib Shack in Jacksonville last night, for the last few minutes of Back Forty Beer's tap takeover. The restaurant had added Back Forty's Kudzu Porter to its row of tap handles for the evening (the Gadsden brewery's Naked Pig Pale Ale, Freckle Belly IPA and Truck Stop Honey Brown are normally available there). A representative from the brewery was there handing out T-shirts, glasses, etc.

It was cool to have all four of Back Forty's regular brews available, but it did mean that another regular craft offering was unavailable for the night: Lazy Magnolia's Southern Pecan Brown Ale. Interestingly, Lazy Magnolia played a big role in getting Back Forty off the ground, brewing the Alabama company's beers at its facility in Kiln, Miss., until Back Forty's Gadsden brewery opened this year.

If you've ever been to Cooter Brown's you know space is very tight, and that includes space behind the bar and in the back. Unfortunately, that means adding new taps is unlikely, people with the restaurant have told me. That means they consider their draft offerings very, very carefully.