"What the Matter with the Beer We Got?"

Katherine Mangu-Ward | March 17, 2008

Alabama's legislators are a hardworking bunch. And after a long day of legislating (or should that be legislatin'?), they sometimes like to sit back and have a cold, frosty beer with less that 6 percent alcohol. Why 6 percent, you ask? That's the legal limit on the alcohol content of beer in the state. Last year, a legislator proposed raising that limit to 13.9 percent, thus permitting the sale of craft beers, and the measure failed to make it to the floor. Again this year, the topic came up, and when it did, the chamber was graced with this deep, introspective, and wide-ranging declamation from state Rep. Alvin Holmes (D-Montgomery):

"What's the matter with the beer we got? I mean, the beer we got drink pretty good, don't it? I ain't never heard nobody complain about the, uh, beer we have. It drink pretty good, don't it? Budweiser. What's the names of some of them other beers?..."

Skip ahead to hear this rhetorical feat at 5:33 in the embedded video, which is also full of lots of helpful facts about Atlanta'sAlabama's great gourmet beer debate.

Via Jacob Grier

Comments

|3.17.08 @ 4:50PM|#

Ahhh, sweet home...

Taktix®|3.17.08 @ 4:54PM|#

I just... wow. I can't even think of... just... wow.

Episiarch|3.17.08 @ 4:56PM|#

Sometimes I think southern stereotypes are absurd and exaggerated.

Sometimes I don't.

|3.17.08 @ 4:59PM|#

Episiarch - 'Sometimes I don't' is the correct thought IMO. I really miss the west...

|3.17.08 @ 5:00PM|#

What's the matter with the beer we got? I mean, the beer we got drink pretty good, don't it?

Yep. And it don't eben taste bad when I brush my tooth after drankin' a few a' dem. Man, my aunt's daughter shoor looked hot t'day.

Alabamian|3.17.08 @ 5:04PM|#

That's ebonics he's speaking.

|3.17.08 @ 5:05PM|#

If we had video, would we see Rep. Holmes working on a keg at his desk?

Alabamian|3.17.08 @ 5:07PM|#

You bunch of racist Yankees

|3.17.08 @ 5:10PM|#

How many people in the first ever Congress? That one worked pretty well. You guys should go back to that number of elected reps. in D.C.
Just saying . . .

|3.17.08 @ 5:11PM|#

Well I be doggone

Tym|3.17.08 @ 5:27PM|#

Dare downt be nutin rong wit dem berrs wut wee bee dun gots.

|3.17.08 @ 5:29PM|#

And ya'll wonders why missippi such a tough nut ta crack.
It is damn difficult to outwit ignorance.

|3.17.08 @ 5:31PM|#

Oh, and these folks you are listening to are training and getting their resume ready to get a seat in the U.S. congress.

|3.17.08 @ 5:32PM|#

That's funny right there, I don't care who you are.

|3.17.08 @ 5:35PM|#

Wow.

I now know just how lucky I am to be able to live in Colorado, with our most excellent selection of beers in every taste, color, and consistency available from people who are passionate it about it.

The yokels who opposed this bill can all just go fuck themselves.

SIV|3.17.08 @ 5:39PM|#

You bunch of racist Yankees

kinda redundant

BakedPenguin|3.17.08 @ 5:40PM|#

Suddenly the Florida restriction against 40 oz beers doesn't seem as stupid...

|3.17.08 @ 5:41PM|#

I don't know anything about Rep. Holmes other than what I heard right there. Sure he butchered the language pretty good, but he did stop to ask who was behind the bill being introduced and more or less called bs on the answer of "young people from Germany". Someone willing to ask a few questions of their co-conspirators would be a nice change.

SIV|3.17.08 @ 5:49PM|#

Suddenly the Florida restriction against 40 oz beers doesn't seem as stupid...

Alabama is way more progressive than FLA , they have a 16oz maximum. Quarts are illegal in 'Bama.

Franklin Harris|3.17.08 @ 5:54PM|#

Yeah, the scary thing is that Alvin Holmes is one of the most powerful legislators here.

|3.17.08 @ 5:55PM|#

Did that ignorant hillbilly cocksucker actually, really, seriously, say "Personally I want to keep the hops in captivity"? Seriously? I hope I just hallucinated that.

Franklin Harris|3.17.08 @ 5:59PM|#

Sure he butchered the language pretty good, but he did stop to ask who was behind the bill being introduced and more or less called bs on the answer of "young people from Germany".

The group behind the bill is Free the Hops, which is backed mostly by higher-end bars and pubs, as well as those of us who frequent them.

|3.17.08 @ 6:03PM|#

Nobody tell them that hops are related closely to marijuana

|3.17.08 @ 6:07PM|#

Warty,
yup, he said it. He sounded pretty sincere.


damn german kids in mercedes

|3.17.08 @ 6:10PM|#

mediageek

I agree and Colorado is where I aim to be again. (job stuff) To see the Flatirons again, NCAR...

In the superior state (relative to alabama as they say here in arkansas) I overheard last summer - after a Rainbow Family gathering - that a controlled burn should be put in place at where they camped.
Them damned hippies!

It is true - the blog I could write from being in the bible belt for a couple of years.

Hell - I have to drive a 20 mile round trip to buy beer myself, dry counties and all.

|3.17.08 @ 6:27PM|#

OK smart guy ZZtop, how would you get rid of the smell?

Ska|3.17.08 @ 6:44PM|#

I usually just run around with a pan of burnt bacon.

|3.17.08 @ 6:46PM|#

16oz? You can't even get a tall boy?

We may have a ridiculous state monopoly on hard liquor here but thank God no stupid cap on abv or bottle size.

|3.17.08 @ 6:50PM|#

Who wants to bet all the opponents are being bought off by BMC?

Quack|3.17.08 @ 6:54PM|#

"What's the matter with the beer we got? I mean, the beer we got drink pretty good, don't it?"

"And ya'll wonders why missippi such a tough nut ta crack."

Wait a minute there, I pretty sure I heard something real close to this, at about 2AM Sun morning up at the VFW right here in good ol' Wisconsin.

|3.17.08 @ 7:53PM|#

"What's the matter with the beer we got? I mean, the beer we got drink pretty good, don't it? I ain't never heard nobody complain about the, uh, beer we have. It drink pretty good, don't it? Budweiser. What's the names of some of them other beers?..."

♬Oh Alabama
Banjos playing
through the broken glass
Windows down in Alabama.
See the old folks
tied in white ropes
Hear the banjo.
Don't it take you down home?♬*

*One of my favorite canucks, Neil Young.

Brandybuck|3.17.08 @ 8:07PM|#

At the World Beer Convention, the CEOs of Anheuser-Busch, Coors, and Guinness all sneak away from the boring convention and off to the local pub.

Once there the CEO of Anheuser-Busch says to the bartender, "Give me a Budweiser, the King of Beers!" Then the CEO of Coors Inc. says to the bartender, "Give me a Coors, brewed with Pure Rocky Mountain Spring Water

Brandybuck|3.17.08 @ 8:09PM|#

...continued...
Then the CEO of Guinesss says to the bartender, "Give me an ice tea."

"What!" exclaim the other two men, "You're not going to drink your own product?!?!"

"Nah," says the Guiness guy, "I figure if you're not going to drink beer, I won't either..."

|3.17.08 @ 9:33PM|#

Hm, I should go get some Piraat. And maybe some Three Philosophers and Gulden Draak while I'm at it.

Franklin Harris|3.17.08 @ 9:58PM|#

*One of my favorite canucks, Neil Young.

A Southern man don't need him around anyhow.

GILMORE|3.17.08 @ 11:54PM|#

When I was in school in tennessee I made beer for the Market Street Brewery/Bohannon Brewing company. I did nothing but swab gunk out of tanks and carry pallets of hops around, but i did learn a lot about a lot of southerners mixed opinions about craft beer, which ranged from:

"This is some funky yankee shit"
to
"Damn thats good"

The Damn thats Good types were usually better paid types. I can see why legislators argue about this stuff in class terms, because there's also a lot of dry counties in the bible belt, and any law about alcohol will be opposed, details be damned. But there was also a serious homebrew and craftbrew demand down there that was underfilled.

Personally, after 4 years of smelling the stuff every day, i was so put off by funky craft beer i can only drink german/czech/belgian lagers. But whatever. It's a dumb argument to be sure. Many of the tourists in nashville from 'Bama had never seen the stuff, and now i know why

GILMORE|3.17.08 @ 11:56PM|#

P.S.

I've been a beer industry analyst in NYC for the 12 years since i got out of school

Funny how that works out

Franklin Harris|3.18.08 @ 12:16AM|#

When I was in school in tennessee I made beer for the Market Street Brewery/Bohannon Brewing company.

And some damn fine beer you (sorta) made, too.

|3.18.08 @ 1:27AM|#

Third that on Colorado. I might not have ever drank beer again if I hadn't moved here (hard stuff being more my thing). 90 Schilling has changed my life. There are at least four fantastic breweries within a three mile *bike* ride of my house (Fort Collins). Soon as the weather gets a little warmer, man, life is good.

|3.18.08 @ 7:36AM|#

Obviously they had not removed the works of Joel Chandler Harris and Mark Twain before this legislator attended school, otherwise he'd sound like Bill Buckley.

|3.18.08 @ 9:05AM|#

Alabama's legislators...Atlanta's great gourmet beer debate.

Uh, are you somehow convinced that Atlanta, GA is where the Alabama legislature meets?

Seitz|3.18.08 @ 10:45AM|#

Tastes like wine? Either they've been drinking really crappy beer, or really crappy wine.

|3.18.08 @ 3:54PM|#

The law was created to exclude Malt liquor. It is an old law, not meant to touch craft beers which became mostly relevant in the 1990s. Alabama also doesn't have 40oz.

Many people in Alabama speak plain English. If one wants to do so, the educational system is up to the task of training them. However, in a state proud to be distinctive, a successful politician is one who signals commitment by adopting a very exaggerated form of the local dialect. It is not for lack of options that you see the stereotype, it is because of its signal quality only.
You Yankees buy this "hook, line, and sinker..."

GILMORE|3.18.08 @ 5:29PM|#

hey there aus Alabama

I once did an interview with the director of public health in Alabama

When I got his secretary, she goes, "oh, You're lookin for the Colonel! Hell, i'll get him now if he's not out drinkin already"

I got him, and his first words were, "hell, what, you're some Yankee 'analyst'?! What in the hell is that? Jesus hell on a fucking rollercoaster, How Are Ya!"

I was asking him about smoking and stuff

One of the funniest interviews EVER

GILMORE|3.18.08 @ 5:33PM|#

p.s.

one of the few things i liked about Alabama was the rock climbing at Sand Rock. Good quality routes, though they'd tear your damn skin off. That, and the huge fireworks emporiums off the roadside.

I never got used to was being called a yankee all the time. My family was from North Carolina, but no one ever gave a shit.

|3.18.08 @ 10:30PM|#

Thank God I live in Wisconsin and love to love most of my beer in the civil states of Ca. Co. OR. Ia Mi. In and Il. Wi. Civilization lives in the open mind.
these Provincial minds do not Know what they are missing
TG

|3.19.08 @ 10:39AM|#

I grew up in Montgomery... We had a japanese exchange student in high school who really thought a guy that came to our door selling candy bars was speaking a different language.

Alvin Holmes is typical of how better spoken blacks in Montgomery talk and I'm not kidding or trying to be mean. If you go to Mathews air force base you can meet blacks who talk like Tiger Woods or Obama, but Alvin Holmes is about average.

There is a middle class community of blacks east of Montgomery that has a lot of Tuskegee graduates and you will find a lot of normal speaking folks there.

The real southern blacks are very friendly people although my New Jersey wife literally cannot understand anything they say.

Then when I went to college in Boston I had to listen to a bunch of cosmotarians tell me how cultured they were and how racist I was in spite of never visiting any city outside of the East Coast.

Now I'm just a yankee who trolls on Reason.