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" Homebrewing is a perfectly reasonable (and Ron Swanson-approved) hobby in 49 states. The fiftieth? &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m glad to say we&amp;#039;re the last state,&amp;quot; Alabama State Representative Richard Baughn declared during a House meeting on April 2. Here, it&amp;#039;s currently a felony to homebrew. But the hops-heads won&amp;#039;t be criminals much longer. HB9 \u2014 Alabama&amp;#039;s latest iteration of a homebrewing legalization bill \u2014 passed through the State House that night. Two hours of debate ended in a 58-33 vote (64 percent approval). And yesterday, long after the hour you might expect these politicians to rush home to catch Rectify, HB9 officially went further than any homebrewing bill has gone before. The Alabama Senate surprisingly brought it to the floor out of order and passed the bill without much debate, 18-7. Homebrewing may still be short of legal, but now only Governor Robert Bentley&amp;#039;s pen stands in the way. And State Senator Bill Holtzclaw, a known HB9 proponent within that body, told AL.com that Bentley is &amp;quot;fine&amp;quot; with the legislation. Alabama, for all intents and purposes, has been on an island. In 2009, Utah made 47. In 2010, Oklahoma claimed 48, and this March, Mississippi took 49 (though their bill takes 90 days to go into effect). On the verge of history, it remains unclear what the hell took 50 so long. Alabama&amp;#039;s pushback against homebrewing can&amp;#039;t be blamed on the state&amp;#039;s dry counties; HB9 was sponsored by a politician with some jurisdiction in such an area and a majority of reps in that position voted yes. As the debate from that first vote shows, opponents were simply full of Nick Saban-levels of bullshit. Take Representative Allen Farley&amp;#039;s tug to the heartstrings, for example: As a Christian father of three daughters and 11 grandchildren, I&amp;#039;ve been blessed, you&amp;#039;ve been blessed, this a personal thing with me.... Upstairs right now we&amp;#039;re trying to give everybody a gun and downstairs we&amp;#039;re trying to give everybody the opportunity to brew alcohol. If we ever get that group together, we have more trouble than we can handle. That got a little pushback, so Farley went on, &amp;quot;If you abused either one of them, yes, but that seems to be the tendency of the world we live in and we know that.&amp;quot; Farley proposed one of two failed amendments to HB9. After kinda-sorta indirectly comparing homebrewing to firearms, he definitely thought the two entities deserved equal regulation. His amendment stated that any person who wishes to produce alcohol under HB9 must register with the sheriff&amp;#039;s department. That way, &amp;quot;Mr. So-and-so, even though he&amp;#039;s working at NASA and has all these degrees, if you have a question about what he&amp;#039;s doing, call the sheriff&amp;#039;s office.&amp;quot; (The NASA thing is apparently legitimate. Many employees actually live in Alabama even if some of their local politicians seem to be from space.) The other formal complaint that swelled into a failed amendment was a concern about how homebrewing could impact children. Representative Mike Jones politely proposed it on behalf of his friend Representative Kurt Wallace, who was ill. Unfortunately, others were happy to get all &amp;quot;ROLL TIDE!&amp;quot; with this sentiment. &amp;quot;I know people who have brewed alcohol before,&amp;quot; said Representative Arthur Payne. &amp;quot;And the jobs of the kids in the family was, after it&amp;#039;s brewed, they were supposed to put it in containers.&amp;quot; Payne actually had more reasons behind his &amp;quot;no,&amp;quot; starting with a love of fresh air. He lamented how he might have to smell beer being brewed near churches or schools, places liquor stores must remain 1,000 feet away from (though homes in closer range can theoretically possess alcohol). His main complaint, however, dealt with the dangers homebrewing would bring to the state. Here he is, practically breathless: You&amp;#039;re going to have all kinds of people abuse this, you&amp;#039;re going to have kinds of people sell this, you&amp;#039;re going to put alcohol in every neighborhood in this state, you&amp;#039;re going to expose kids to alcohol who have never had alcohol before in their lives, you&amp;#039;re going to have families destroyed by this bill because of bringing alcohol into their family unit. It&amp;#039;s a bad idea for Alabama, it&amp;#039;s a bad bill. I&amp;#039;m going to predict right now, standing here, that if this passes \u2014 and I hope for goodness that the Senate has some sense, has some concern for the people of Alabama and kills this bill \u2014 we will have more domestic violence, more young kids drinking alcohol, more wrecks on the highways of this state because of this bill. We&amp;#039;re just completely opening up this whole state to alcohol. Every family, every home, every block \u2014 we&amp;#039;re going to brew alcohol. Do you think that&amp;#039;s a good thing to do? Luckily for sensible Alabamians, extreme opinions like Payne&amp;#039;s dwindled in recent years. The House vote in 2011 was a 45-28 loss. In 2012, it was a slight 44-33 win but the legislative session ended before a Senate vote. This time around, some of the Gump-like hyperbole was actually in favor of homebrewing. If some politicians wanted to invoke Christ as a reason to vote no, Representative Juandalynn Givan was ready with a counter: &amp;quot;Jesus turned water into wine, and when it ran out, he made some more.&amp;quot; Perhaps this was simply a matter of time. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t care what&amp;#039;s in this bill, I don&amp;#039;t even want to read the bill,&amp;quot; said Representative John Rogers. &amp;quot;I just know I have to filibuster this bill.&amp;quot; Rogers did his best, even stretching his comments by admitting he occasionally enjoys some Grey Goose or &amp;quot;yak and 7-Up&amp;quot; (that&amp;#039;s cognac). But no matter how long he delayed, a majority eventually passed it \u2014 including Rogers, who, yes, filibustered a bill he ultimately supported. Cheers to you, Alabama, clearly you&amp;#039;ve got a drink coming that&amp;#039;s been brewing far too long. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/drinks/a22521/alabama-home-brewing-passed-050813/?src=rss>