Leg-Day-2009
Brewer’s Guild representatives in Lansing

June 2ND, 2009 the Michigan Brewer’s Guild had it’s first ever legislative day, when 18 members of the guild went to the State Capitol in Lansing, MI and talked directly to State Senators and Representatives. I was asked to come along.

There are a few major issues that the industry is looking into. One of the highest,on my list is the possible hike in the excise tax (a.k.a. sin tax). With lawmakers looking for ways to make money for the state, they are looking toward the businesses that are doing well. Since the car companies are most likely on deaths door, the breweries are getting attention, but not the good kind. Following record material cost increases in hops and malted barley for the last 2 years, the raising of taxes would most-likely bring many of the smaller breweries to their knees if not break them altogether.  Where did the focus on “Main Street” go?  The federal excise tax, taxes only beers that have over 4.5% abv.  That means the big breweries AB and Miller/Coors products (who make up 95% of beer sold in the U.S.) will not receive this tax hike(?).

Continue reading

Hey everybody, long time, no see.  I’ve been working my ass off trying to get through the beerfest footage to get you a good look at the festivities, while at the same time cutting out some of the more…  inappropriate behavior.  But while we get that all finished, how about a new Cryptic Review.  Here we have a look at the Kentucky Breakfast Stout from Founder’s Brewing Company.  Enjoy.

[viddler]adf9c854[/viddler]

you may notice a couple new features to the site, and if you haven’t SHAME ON YOU, pay more attention. I kid.  We are in the process of adding some facebook integration into thisweekinbeer.  The first thing you may notice is a link on the sidebar to our official Facebook page.  If you become a fan there, you can get updates from us whenever we post something new or send out exciting information to our most special fans.  You will also see that we have a new commenting system thru Disqus.  You can continue to leave comments as you have before with no problems, or you can use the facebook connect button located on the commenting  gadget to log in using your facebook account.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]