There's nothing like a cold beer!
Jon Griffin here, your professor at AskTheBeerGuy.com, with another quick beer update.
As some of you may know, home brewing beer has not been legal in the United States forever. In fact, there are still some states, up until recently, which is what this podcast is about, that actually prohibited home brewing. It wasn't until the Jimmy Carter administration legalized home brewing beer at the federal level, February 1st 1979, that home brewing became legal at all.
Home brewing beer now legal!
We're talking about beer mostly, but wine is a separate issue in this case, but I'm glad to announce that as of May 9th 2013, the last hold-out state, Alabama, actually signed a law that made home brewing legal. That means every state in the United States has laws that allow home brewing to be legal.
The laws pretty much follow the federal guidelines, which say that you basically can brew a hundred gallons a year, as a private individual, and up to two hundred gallons as a family. I know I've never gone over two hundred gallons! For those of you who do, there might be federal penalties waiting for you, but I don't think the secret service has much to worry about by going after somebody who brews a little too much homebrew.
Or who would it be now? The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms? I don't even know what they are anymore, since all these alphabet soups have changed. Anyways, it's a happy day in America, because now everybody can legally homebrew in every state in the United States, because you're not selling it.
Don't quote me on that, because I don't live in one of those dry counties, I live in the twenty-four seven, buy any alcohol you feel like mecca of Las Vegas, but that is the way it goes.
Join a home brewers association and learn to brew beer!
If you're interested in more information on home brewing beer, please go to the American Homebrewers Association, if you're in the USA, or the similar website for your country.
Go to a homebrew meeting, I highly encourage it. I actually just finished teaching this semester, and I've had about three people that are very, very into home brewing, and I'm sure one or two of them may go on to do it for the rest of their lives, and even one of them, or two of them may go on to become professional brewers.
Home brewing is here to stay, and just think of the control and the good beer you can make. You're legal to do it in ever state now.
Cheers!