Proof Positive: August 5, 2010: International Beer Day

by the Left Coast Rebel

I didn't even know such a thing existed but I wholeheartedly support International Beer Day.

InternationalBeerDay.com has some background on the new holiday (as of 2007) and a video up, "The Secret Origin of International Beer Day."

Looking at the International Beer Day map, I see that San Diego is clearly off the radar but the Bay area, Oregon and Washington, many locations in Texas and the gulf coast, some Great Lake locales, Wisconsin and the Eastern seaboard are host to celebrations today. Check the map for yourself.

Over at Memeorandum, E.D. Kain at the progressive site Balloon Juice notes IBD and makes some great points on deregulation in the beer industry. E.D. Kain is just the kind of liberal that I like to have a great discussion with as he has some valid points:

To make a long story short, prohibition led to the dismantling of many small breweries around the nation. When prohibition was lifted, government tightly regulated the market, and small scale producers were essentially shut out of the beer market altogether. Regulations imposed at the time greatly benefited the large beer makers. In 1979, Carter deregulated the beer industry, opening the market back up to craft brewers. As the chart below illustrates, this had a really amazing effect on the beer industry:

That’s the number of large and small-scale breweries in the US. You can see how the large brewers continued to consolidate and grow and absorb more and more market share right up to the point where Carter deregulated the industry.

Obviously not all deregulation is going to work this way, nor are all matters of regulation as relatively unimportant as beer. But this is a good example of how regulation can crowd out small businesses and local economies in favor of big corporations with ties to powerful legislators. If anything, it should be a reminder that regulation in and of itself is pretty meaningless. While requiring offshore drilling rigs to be equipped with some form of safety mechanism to prevent massive oil spills makes a great deal of sense, many regulations are actually written by the special interests who stand to gain most from their implementation, either by gaining special legal perks or by crowding out competition.

One perk of living in the San Diego area is that I am in close proximity to several world class micro breweries. Several favorites (but I hate to choose) are the local coastal locations of Pizza Port, the Ballast Point Brewing company and last but certainly not the least - the Stone Brewing Company. I'm sure you have seen some of Stone's brews around the nation at this point, like the Arrogant Bastard Ale: