Your Thoughts on Alcohol Counseling

This is a weird question that I hope doesn't sound like a cry for help.  Do you have any good recommendations for alcohol counseling?

It's this friend of mine... No, actually, it's this blog itself.  The page on It's Pub Night that gets Googled the most -- I'm going to describe it obliquely so that the hits keep going there and not to this post -- is this one that describes a bad interaction between a common store-bought headache remedy and the intoxicant found in beer (click the link if that's too confusing).

What does that have to do with alcohol counseling?  Because that post comes up in a lot of (possibly remorseful) web searches, I got an offer earlier this year to insert paid text links into it, pointing to a website that purports to find you help with substance abuse.  It was easy to turn down the offer, because the website carefully obscured who was behind it, putting the ball in your court to either telephone them or send them your personal info.  On one level or another it was obviously a scam and not a professional service.  At best it would mechanically hand you off to someone in that line of work in exchange for a finder's fee; at worst it is a phishing operation.  No way to tell.

But it put the idea in my mind that I could put links to reputable rehabs or counseling services on my oft-searched page.  It would be purely a public service, not a paid advertisement, but only if I can find links that would truly be helpful to someone who wanted help with a drinking problem.

Got any recommendations?  Or is my whole idea ridiculous?

Ebay vs. Beer

Yesterday on Beervana, Jeff commented on a Washington Post article about Ebay's black market for beers.  He really got it stirred up, 31 comments and counting.  Jeff thinks the brewers shouldn't be whining about the black market, they should raise their prices to eliminate it.

I'll go into why I disagree with Jeff below, but first some facts about beer sales on Ebay:

1. Ebay doesn't allow the sale of alcoholic beverages.
2. There is a loophole for collectible bottles, if the seller posts a disclaimer that it is the bottle that is valuable, not the beer inside.
3. For rare beers of recent vintage, that disclaimer is obviously a lie.
4. If the seller is willing to lie about the value of the beer to make a few dollars, how can you trust them to treat you honestly in the sale?
5. If you don't like to see beer scalping on Ebay, you can report beer auctions by clicking on the "Report Item" link on the page.  They usually take reported auctions down.
6. Just for fun, check out the time I auctioned an empty Abyss bottle on Ebay.

Occasionally I will report a beer auction on Ebay, just to strike a blow for honesty in the world.  I am not puritanically opposed to people doing what they want, but if you don't like Ebay's rules, you should find some other way to sell your beer.  Today Ebay took down a Dark Lord auction I reported, but it looks like they are going to leave up an auction by one of their "Top-Rated Sellers" of Stone's Framboise for the Cure, which was one of the scalped beers mentioned in the Washington Post article.

Part of the controversy would disappear if Ebay would simply drop their restriction on beer auctions.  Brewers couldn't complain about profiteering -- they would be free to participate in it if they wanted to make more money off of their products, or distribute to a wider audience.  It would also open the door for honest resellers to develop a reputation for properly handling a somewhat delicate product. Of course, Ebay doesn't drop their beer prohibition because they are constrained by a fractured regulatory system in the U.S., where every state has different restrictions on sale and delivery of alcohol.

Jeff's idea that raising prices will eliminate the black market is ridiculous.  This faith in a magical Market that can correctly determine the price of goods is part of the insanity of our times.  At best, it works in a circular definition sort of way:  the market determines the correct price at any given second because the correct price is what someone will pay.  But it doesn't work in any sort of predictive way:  based on this level of supply, and this level of demand, and this attribute of the product, the price will be such-and-such.  Since it can't predict anything, but can only rationalize what happened, this efficient-market model that modern Americans apply to everything has much more in common with religion than with science.

Given the fact that no one can predict ahead of time the market price of something traded in billions of units -- say, common stock of the Intel Corporation -- how is a small brewery supposed to calculate ahead of time the market price of a beer they made 5,000 bottles of?  Simply put, they can't calculate that.  So they set a reasonable price based on their costs, prices of similar products, and their past experience of what their customers will pay.  Of course they want to make a good profit, but there is also value to them in selling out fast -- they don't have to sit on an inventory, and they can devote more space in their operation to the next production run.

Further reading:

• Jeff's post
• Patrick's followup on Beeronomics
• Yesterday's Beer Advocate thread on the Post article
• A Beer Advocate Ebay thread from 2008

It's interesting how much more pro-Ebay the BAs have become in three years.

Babies in Bars

There's an interesting discussion of kids in bars over on The New School. All-star Portland bartender King C presents kids-gone-wild battle stories, and goes on to point out that the OLCC loophole that allows kids in bars -- so they can eat the food served there -- is kind of absurd when applied to babes in arms. He concludes that "Babies don't belong in the bar."

I disagree with that to the extent that I would hate to see the OLCC or the legislature throw down a blanket prohibition on kids -- even babies -- in bars.  On the other hand, if individual pubs like Bailey's Taproom or Apex choose to exclude minors, I'm all for it.  It's nice to be away from the brats for a while, at least the under-21 brats. The current status quo is working well -- some places allow minors, others don't.  Patronize the one that works for you.

It strikes me that the argument is kind of like the smoking ban argument.  It's sometimes annoying to the other patrons when people bring their infants or lit cigarettes into a bar.  It's also easy for non-smokers and non-parents to work up some righteous indignation about both things, and to start talking about it in moral terms.  The smoking ban went through because it was sold as a public health issue, and I'm sure the same busybodies would love to go the same direction with minors in bars: "Won't somebody please think of the children?"  Please folks, let's not go there.

Speaking of babies in bars, Jonathan Lethem's brilliant sci-fi dystopian detective novel Gun, with Occasional Music takes place in a not-so-distant future where gene therapy has created adult-acting babies called "babyheads" who hang out drinking and smoking in "babybars".  Here's a Google Books chapter of the book where the protagonist meets a babyhead in a babybar -- hilarious.

I turned off comments on this post.  If you're opinionated on this subject, go read King C's original post and comment over there.

This is Just Sad

How pathetic is this? A local establishment endows their outdoor tables with beer umbrellas that advertise the non-alcoholic version of a wimpy imported beer. Imagine the chain of decisions -- by the producer, distributor, and proprietor -- that led to a row of these umbrellas here in Portland.

Years ago when I was traveling in Finland, I thought it was funny that all the cafe umbrellas had a Roman numeral "I" after every beer name, because it was legal to advertise the lower alcohol formulas, but not the stronger "III" beers, even though they had the same brand name. This N.A. umbrella strikes me as even sillier than that.

I guess I've told some of you where these are. Has anyone else noticed these, or can you guess the location?

Excess Beer Tax Deceased

Last week the news came out that the insane 20X increase in Oregon's beer excise tax, HB 2461, was officially dead. Get ready, in two years the cycle will continue, and there will be another attempt to raise it again, to raise money and stick it to the sinners of the state. Since Oregon's initiative system is so easily gamed and the population will vote against any tax, the Oregon Brewers Guild should pre-empt the next debate by proposing a constitutional amendment that forbids or impedes future beer tax efforts. Why not?

There is no denying that the state's finances are a wreck. But the beer excise tax is the wrong place to start working on that problem. Instead of focusing on such a tiny piece of the puzzle, some legislative actions that would have a much greater effect are:

1. Get rid of the insane kicker.
2. Tax corporations fairly.
3. Consider a sales tax.

I hate the idea of a sales tax, but it makes more sense than a production-side tax like the excise tax, and would do more good in terms of smoothing out revenue during rough economic times. It looks like corporate taxes are going to get some tweaking by HB 3405, it will be interesting to see if that helps rebalance the income tax load -- 95% of which is currently borne by individuals in Oregon. And the kicker -- what madness. No household or business could survive a strategy that forced them to have a $0 bank balance at the end of every year. The kicker has one reason to exist, and that is to bankrupt the state government. Is that a good thing?

Jeff Alworth linked to a very nice article by that beer-tax-raising devil Ben Cannon. In that article Rep. Cannon -- who somehow represents a chunk of Portland devoid of breweries and brewpubs -- admits to several flaws in his legislation. He admits that taxing the production side is a terrible idea, and grudgingly admits that a 15-cent per pint excise increase gets magnified before the consumer pays it, though he still doesn't have a businesslike grasp of how prices are set. He concludes by saying that he continues to support an increase of some kind. Gird yourselves, it's coming back in two years.

Defeat Extra Beer Taxes: HB 2461

When I was inveighing against Oregon's smoking ban, I pointed out that "public health" is the new good-luck charm that neo-Puritans use to get otherwise progressive people on board with their efforts to legislate morality. Now they're at it again, with Oregon House Bill 2461: a proposal to increase the excise tax on beer by 2008%, to the highest in the nation.

Be very afraid of these people: they love the power of regulating individual behavior, and they love it when everyone lets them get away with claims that it's for our own good. They're comfortable with big lies, like the claim that "untreated substance abuse" costs Oregon $5 billion a year -- nicely refuted on Beervana. Or take this statement by one of the bill's sponsors, Rep. Ben Cannon of Portland -- "We know that this works, and it pays for itself many times over in reduced incarceration, reduced crime." -- at about 1:32 in this KGW video. Liar, liar, pants on fire! (Thanks, Steve Novick.) You do not know that a punitive tax on beer production results in reduced crime. Be a man, and admit that you want to tax activities that seem sinful, because you are afraid to increase state revenues with taxes that make more sense.



It may be possible to excuse Cannon for sponsoring this sin tax -- his Portland district seems to have been gerrymandered to exclude any of our city's fine breweries -- but my own State Senator Diane Rosenbaum is also listed as a sponsor of this bill. Her district includes six small, locally-owned breweries that would be severely impacted by this bill:

• Hair of the Dog
  
• Lucky Labrador
• Roots
• Hopworks
• Clinton Street
• Philadelphia's

To give you an example of the impact this would have, Jim Parker estimates that Hopworks' tax bill would increase by $150,000 per year. That's a mom-and-pop establishment, beloved by the community, started from scratch by local entrepreneurs, whose business practices are very "green". And you're going to increase their taxes by an amount that is about 3 or 4 full-time salaries? Sen. Rosenbaum should be extremely embarrassed to have her name on this bill.

Notes:

• Drop what you're doing right now, and write your state legislators.
• As usual, Jeff Alworth has a very level-headed analysis (even though he fell for the smoking ban).
• This comes up every two years. Let's go nuclear. The Oregon Brewers Guild should write an initiative that amends the Oregon Constitution to require a unanimous vote of the legislature to raise beer taxes.
• "Defeat Extra Beer Taxes" can be typed just with the left hand on a QWERTY keyboard.
  

Upside to the Smoking Ban

I had my rant about how we should not let the busybodies and Church Ladies of the world ban everything that carries some statistical amount of danger. Now it's all academic: the smoking ban is here. Let's look at the upside. As a non-smoker, there are a lot of pubs and bars that suddenly seem more inviting to me.

Topping the list, of course, is the Horse Brass. When Carla and I were on our way over there January 2 to enjoy its smoke-free splendor -- by the way, it was packed that night -- I was shocked to hear my own dear wife say that it would be her first visit to the Horse Brass. She's all for the smoking ban. I think she might be a Church Lady: look, she even drinks her Caldera Smoker's Stout in front of the Brass' stained glass.

Some other places that are likely to get more of my business post-ban:

• Moon and Sixpence
• Claudia's
• Langano Lounge
  
• Hawthorne Hideaway
• Basement Pub
• Pub at the End of the Universe
• Nine Muses
  

Claudia's has a completely respectable beer selection for a sports bar. I've never been inside the Hideaway, but it's three blocks from my house. The other places on the list have bona fide cool, but the smoke was annoying enough to keep me away. There are some nearby dives that I'll probably check out -- like Ladd's Inn, Reel'M'Inn, The Slammer -- although the beer selection may not be up to my snobbery. I'm not really a strip-club guy, but I could imagine a visit to Mary's Club now that there's no smoking.

So I ask you, Dear Reader: What are some other good places in Portland that are now worth it for a non-smoker to go to?

Oregon's Smoking Ban Sucks

The smoking ban sucks, just like bicycle -- and motorcycle -- helmet laws suck.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a smoker and I hate the smell. Pubs and bars are not going to go out of business because of the ban. I'm looking forward to spending more time at the Horse Brass after January 1st (assuming it really adheres to the ban).

So why am I against the ban? Because this is a free country, and we put up with nuisances caused by other people so that they will put up with ours. Want to live a tranquil, nuisance-free life? Move to Singapore, or Saudi Arabia, or some other country where morality is legislated, so that you don't have to be inconvenienced by gum chewing, loud music, embarrassing jokes, or women drivers. I would rather chew gum, listen to music, tell jokes, and let the wife drive.



Beer lovers should be especially alarmed, because the neo-Puritans are coming after us next. Some people smoke in bars because it brings them pleasure. They can have their vices and I can have mine. But there are other people out there who think the world can and should be rid of all vices.

They have found a fetching shade of lipstick to put on their morality-legislating pig: public health. It's how the smoking ban got sold, it's how helmet laws get sold, and -- as Jay Brooks regularly reminds us -- it's how they're attacking alcoholic beverages. There was a letter to the editor in the Oregonian today that said beer and wine should be taxed more heavily to fund health care (can't find a link -- websites as terrible as the Oregonian's should be against the law).

The thing is, there are some things that are fun to do that carry a certain element of risk. Any of these things can be hazardous to your health: smoking, drinking, riding a bike, driving a car, swimming in a river, climbing a mountain, shooting guns. Sure, smoking also has a negative health impact on other people, but so does driving a car -- really, that has an even bigger impact. Are you ready to ban private automobiles? (I am, but that's just the Puritan in me talking.)

Choose freedom. Oppose helmet laws, smoking bans, sin taxes, drug wars, and encroachments on the Second Amendment. Outlawing fun things to do only decreases the amount of fun in the world, and punishes law-abiding people. Like Graham Chapman says in the video above, the only way to bring the crime figures down is to reduce the number of offenses!

Growler Math

How ridiculous is it that there are no longer returnable beer bottles? (Or pop bottles, for that matter.) In this day and age where we're worried about energy and the environment, every bottle of beer you drink is manufactured for a single use, then -- best case -- crushed into dust; worst case, tossed in a landfill.

Two-quart growlers provide you, the eco-friendly Portlander, a way to reuse a bottle, instead of sending it off to be melted and made into a different bottle. Plus you get some good, fresh local beer.

But there's a catch: in general, you get to pay more for the privilege of not using a bottle. For example, the new Deschutes pub in Portland charges $15 for a 64-ounce growler fill, about 23 cents an ounce, quite a premium over the price of a 72-ounce six-pack. Given that good Oregon beers are selling for something like $7-$9 a six-pack -- even good beers from out-of-state are in the same range -- the bottle price is somewhere between 10 and 13 cents an ounce.

Granted, $15 is on the high end of growler prices. But even the more usual price of $11 is about 17 cents an ounce. Why does it cost less to buy a six-pack, with a cut going to middlemen in the form of distributors and retailers, than to buy unpackaged beer directly from the producer?

[Update 2008/08/17]: Lindsey points out that it's confusing to talk about the price per ounce. Instead, consider that a growler holds eight-ninths the volume of a six-pack. So if you would pay $9 a six-pack, you should get a growler filled for no more than $8. An $8 six-pack equates with a $7.10 growler; $7 with $6.20. And that gives the brewer all the extra margin that used to go to packaging, distribution, and retailing. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it seems to show that growler prices could be even lower and still be a winner for the brewery.

According to the excellent growler index on the Champagne of Blogs, there are some deals to be had: $6.95 at Rock Bottom, or $4.95 at Portland Brewing -- oops, now it's $5.95 according to a comment below. If more places had growler fills that were in that six-pack price range, it would be a big boost to environmentally sound beer-drinking. Maybe it could even be a way to boost pub business: sit down for a pint and get a discount on your growler fill.

By the way, that growler index would be a great thing to put on the Portland Beer Wiki. Pubs open and prices change all the time, so it's just the thing that you want feet on the street to update. I would also be interested in growler prices at non-brewpubs: I think that any bar with a beer license could fill growlers if they wanted to.

No Thanks, I'm Drinking

Do you drive every morning, every evening, and sometimes during the day? Do you drive alone? Does your driving take up more of your time and money each year? Has your driving ever caused trouble at home? Is it hard for you to socialize without driving? Then you probably have a driving problem.

If you suffer from automobile addiction, please don't let it interfere with your drinking. At least on weekend nights, there's a new outfit in Portland that will help you out. RideOn Portland is a non-profit organization that will send a sober driver to your location, to drive you and your car home safely. According to their website, the drivers arrive on folding scooters, so they can load them into your car and be on their way after dropping you off.

The $10 price makes RideOn a no-brainer if you know you shouldn't be driving. That's $10 per car, no extra charge for your passengers -- you did carpool to the pub, right? The service area is fairly limited right now: the website says they'll drive you anywhere in the Portland metro, but they'll only pick you up in SE Portland within the rectangle bordered by Grand, Burnside, 82nd, and Powell. Still, there's some good drinking to be done within that rectangle.

Hours of operation are pretty narrow -- 11 PM to 3 AM, Friday and Saturday only -- but those happen to be the drunkenest eight hours of the week. Bad public transit hours also, with little or no service in some parts of town. I like their strategy: break off a manageable chunk of spacetime to get the ball rolling. The phone number to call is 503-235-7433 -- put it in your cellphone right now if you think you're going to need it. If you really did that, go ahead and put Radio Cab in there too, in case you lose your cool outside the RideOn area: 503-227-1212.

I haven't used RideOn myself. If you have any experience with it, feel free to leave a comment. And work on that driving problem.