In Bible Belt, brewing is a battle

HARVEST, ALA. — Two dozen guys are crowded into a basement, talking loudly over Triscuits, when Scott Oberman breaks the law.

In defiance of Alabama Criminal Code 28-4-20, he pours his buddy a beer.

"John Tipton's Chocolate Porter," he announces. It's a dark brown beer, almost black, with a taste that starts out astringent, like cheap red wine, then mellows into a silky chocolate flavor, with fleeting notes of coffee and cinnamon.

Tipton, a big-bellied mechanical engineer, brewed it at home, for fun. That's illegal in Alabama. He estimates the beer is about 8% alcohol by volume. That's illegal, too.

But it won't be for long, if the guys in the basement get their way.

Seventy-five years after Prohibition, beer aficionados in Alabama are fighting for the right to brew and chug as they please. That's raised the ire of Southern Baptists, who frown on alcohol in any form. As they jockey for advantage in the Legislature, one side quotes Scripture. The other cites BeerAdvocate.com. One talks morality. The other, malt.

Though this may seem like an only-in-the-Bible-Belt brawl, booze-related debates have flared recently in a number of states.

In Virginia, for instance, sangria was the talk of the statehouse after a Spanish restaurant was cited for illegally mixing brandy with wine, in violation of a 1930s-era statute. Idaho lawmakers may soon amend the criminal code to permit vodka sales on election days. And in Colorado, lawmakers have considered rescinding a law that bans supermarkets (but not liquor stores) from selling wine with more than 3.2% alcohol content.

Here in Alabama, home-brewing beer has long been a Class A misdemeanor, with a penalty of up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine. It's another Class A misdemeanor to sell or distribute any beer with more than 6% alcohol content. That puts off-limits 85 of the 100 top-rated beers in the world, as ranked by BeerAdvocate.com. "They think everyone down here is a bunch of damn rednecks and all we drink is Budweiser," grumbles Tipton, 48.

Whole categories of beer can't be sold in Alabama (except on federal military bases, where the state law doesn't apply). Among the forbidden brews: thick, dark Russian stouts, smoky Scottish ales, bittersweet barleywines and the legendary beers made by Belgium's Trappist monks.

What's left?

Not much that Oberman and his friends would want to drink.