You may recall the Republicans’ budget trick in Wisconsin which was designed to protect MillerCoors from competition from the InBev distribution network. The provision also royally screwed small craft brewers. The great GOP champions of free market competition effectively made it illegal for craft brewers to market their beer wholesale, prevented them from organizing co-ops to distribute their product and limited expanding their individual brewpubs to no more than two restaurants.
Beer drinkers and activists flooded the Statehouse with calls and letters and actually flipped five Republicans, who joined a couple of Dems to request the Governor veto the provision. Walker of course, ignored the request and the corporations won that battle. But craft beer supporters aren’t giving up without a fight. They’re dumping gallons of MillerCoors on the street and have been convincing some traditional taverns to drop MillerCoors products altogether.
Don’t know if they’ll ever manage to get the budget provision overturned but love the fighting spirit. As Blue Cheddar says, “This is Wisconsin. We are 45% of Germanic heritage. We are going to fight back hard for good, homegrown beer.”
I’ll drink to that. [via]
Jim, Foolish Literalist
That alone makes this the best news story of the day
mellowjohn
miller and coors’ products rank right up there w/ horse urine. from a horse w/ a kidney infection.
Opie-jeanne
I am in Madison for the DiscWorld con and we just went out to see the art fair in front of the Capitol. There is a group out front protesting Walker’s various betrayals and we saw signs On stores telling Walker that his days are numbered.
srv
Is there no legal course via that courts?
Stefan
First they came for the MillerCoors, and I said nothing, for I drank Berliner Weisse….
Mr Stagger Lee
I would like to see Wisconsin in the 2010’s be like West Virginia in the 1920’s when the miners rose and fought the big guys and their stooges in the government. The little people with the sun in their faces, before Walker hires Blackwater to crush them, there is a John Sayles movie somewhere.
Villago Delenda Est
A friend of mine who self identified his politics as “to the right of Attila the Hun” spoke of his bemusement that Anheuser-Busch would want to associate their product, a yellow foaming liquid, with draft horses.
PeakVT
They’re dumping gallons of MillerCoors on the street
I hope the EPA doesn’t know about that.
Spaghetti Lee
Recall elections are in four days, right?
MikeJ
Wine, now beer. We need a spirits thread. Or this hed suggests a connection to alcohol: Men steal stuffed alligator, go to mud party. Alcohol may have been a factor
S. cerevisiae
Here’s to real beer! I think people will remember this when the recall petition comes around.
Yutsano
The revolution has begun in, of all places, Wisconsin. Maybe I should think about transferring to the Madison office.
slag
What did Lake Michigan do to deserve this?
cathyx
The only way to protect Millers or Coors beer from losing sales is to prevent any competition, especially in the form of craft brewing. Miller/Coors would never win a taste off.
ruemara
I see nothing wrong with dumping Miller/Coors. I only wonder about the health hazards to the environment. If they promise to hand out some craft brews, I can be there in 3 days.
Jim C.
Okay, so now Republicans in Wisconsin have gone after unions and beer, are they going to ban cheese or the Green Bay Packers next to see just how truly loathed they can get?
Mnemosyne
We’re going to be staying up near the state line for a week in August, and G is definitely going to need to buy some New Glarus and ship it to himself, just in case.
I can’t help wondering if Walker is one of those wacky teetotaling Baptists who doesn’t realize how much Wisconsinites love their beer, or if he just has no taste in beer and thinks MillerCoors is just as good as something like New Glarus.
Yutsano
@ Jim C:
Watch Walker go for the trifecta: demanding private ownership of the Packers without buying back all the public shares. Or better yet just negotiate it without any input to some enterprising billionaire buddy of his. He’d be run out on a rail tomorrow.
kdaug
Tea party 2.0. With beer. And with luck, guitars.
Fucking awesome.
gbear
I’ll bet that he drinks what ever beverage the lobbyists give to him.
kideni
A little of both, I suspect. He’s from Colorado Springs (he didn’t move to WI until he was a teenager, I believe) and a fundie Baptist preacher’s son. I don’t think he appreciates the ramifications of his actions…
ericblair
They Shall Rue The Day They Fucked With The Beer. Why doesn’t he just ban cheese curds too.
Making the world safe for megacorporate monocultures, one state at a time.
Jim in Chicago
The way to make this protest truly effective will be for people to enter bars in WI, ask if they serve MillerCoors products, and (if they say yes) inform the proprietors that they will not return until that is no longer the case.
befuggled
How’s it going to get to Lake Michigan from Eau Claire?
stuckinred
Japan takes the lead over Germany in extra time!
dr. bloor
The perfect answer to the teaparty; the beerparty.
jl
Can we find evidence that any teabagger elected official anything other than political muscle for big corporations?
Might be an interesting summer project for Balloon Juice. Need to brand it, and get some sponsors (preferably big corporate ones if we want to make money). Let’s see, how about: ‘Teabag Pol Who is NOT Big Corporate Muscle Challenge’?
I have faith in WI, they will fight on, they will fight on the beaches, in the bars and taverns, in the stadium, until they prevail.
I have been in WI a couple of times but do not recall ever drinking alcohol there. I will do that some day, if they don’t keep records about that kind of behavior and let me back in, after I get my affairs in order.
To get it over quickly, I suggest sending in some big guns:
Lewis Black | Drinking in Wisconsin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WlwumGkSec
Zam
Local bar here gave you a New Glarus if you dumped out a miller there.
demkat620
Really, really falling in hardcore love with the Badger State.
Damn, this is sweet.
jl
Can we get a candid shot of Walker having a $700 bottle of beer with some lobbyists?
Mike in NC
I knew the Coors family were like those Koch bastards, but didn’t know they’d joined up with Miller to form their very own Evil Empire.
scav
Wisconsin!
ETA: I gave up, I was incoherent with glee.
Jennifer
Godspeed, you magnificent beer-swilling bastards!
gbear
Whoa! If you’re any age over 15, that statement just doesn’t make any sense.
Oh wait, you don’t recall drinking. That’s OK then.
mellowjohn
Stagger Lee @ #6:
there is. it’s called “matewan.”
befuggled @ #24:
it’s downhill.
rootless_e
The Republicans are the party of incumbency capitalism.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704076804576180240631499516.html
J. Michael Neal
Stupid cheeseheads don’t seem to realize that you have to *steal* the beer before you pour it out. If you buy it, Miller really doesn’t care what you do with it.
Temporarily Max McGee (soon enough to be Andy K again)
Yutsano @18
Oh, I’d looooove to see him try that. My little sister, Hurricane Amy, would descend upon him in seconds flat. I picture it as a scene out of Kill Bill.
stuckinred
mellowjohn
James Earl Jones
“You can call me a nigger cuz you don’t know any better but don’t you EVER call me a scab!”
kideni
mellowjohn @ #35: From Eau Claire it’ll go to the Mississippi, which means the Gulf of Mexico will have yet more toxins to clean up.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
beer is the brass rail of american politics.
kerFuFFler
Pouring millions of gallons of Coors/Miller beer in the street just adds to their bottom line ‘cuz you have to buy it first. Getting bars to stop serving it seems like the ticket.
gbear
The bar that dumped the beer in the street has also stopped selling it to customers. They’re no longer buying from Coors/Miller, and they also got their two bits worth of publicity.
mutt
You dump out swill berr and theres no telling WHO you will attract. Remember when that frozen butter warehouse caught fire outside Madison in….86? the gutters ran with butter, and raccoon & skunks from miles around massed…..
Tokyokie
MillersCoors is basically the U.S. division of London-based South African Brewing, just as Anheuser Busch is the U.S. division of Brussels-based InBev. So the only truly American beers are the craft breweries.
Prometheus Shrugged
Not especially related to the Wisconsin political stupidity, but…An interesting microbrew freemarket experiment has just been set up in my area. Green Flash has moved their operations and tasting room almost literally down the street from Alesmith. The economists should follow this closely to see whether one eventually forces a change in the other or whether they pull each other up. Judging by the number of people that were on the mini tour in the middle of the afternoon, I’ll go with the latter outcome– this part of San Diego has the potential to become the St. Helena of ultra premium west coast beer. Personally, I like Alesmith beer better, but the Green Flash tasting room has better ambience (and picnic tables–Banh Mi all around and a couple of growlers of double IPA can’t be beat!)
Martin
Ah, but they’re winning the rhetorical war which I’ve now been told is the only one worth winning.
JGabriel
@mutt:
Those weren’t skunks, those were teabaggers — hardening their arteries for the battles to come.
.
Gravenstone
/tips a Spotted Cow toward Mnemosyne.
SiubhanDuinne
@JGabriel #49:
You can tell the difference how?
Libby Spencer
Not a fan of littering but beer isn’t toxic. Not much difference between pouring it straight out of a barrel into the sewers or taking the more circuitous route through the bathrooms.
Also, too Wisconsin activists rock. These people have been fighting the GOPers non-stop on every front whether or not the camera crews are watching.
Sko Hayes
@MikeJ #9- They stopped a woman in Australia that had a .4 blood alcohol level the other day. Most people are 6 feet under at anything over .25. And she was driving.
Svensker
Remind me again how this law promotes freedom and small government? Wolverines?
jl
@44: From what I have read, the law and resulting regs would effectively discriminate against smaller brewers, who fear that they would be put out of business.
I also read that part of the deal is a beef between Miller and Budweiser, but I don’t understand that angle.
buckyblue
LOVE this story. I am sure that Walker does not drink. Pretty much dogma amongst the evangelical community. And if you wanna know how Walker makes a decision, just follow the money. That’s it, who’s a big corporate sponsor and how can he help them. I know he doesn’t drink but apparently he’s a corporate-sexual; he’ll take it up the ass for any corporation. Read a local blog that described going into the attic to get the old man’s piece of hickory used in olden days struggles. Going to go buy my own and break it in. They’re fucking with the recalls and state redistricting. The only answer for these groups of TYRANTS will be violence.
briber
@SiubhanDuinne #52;
Easy, the skunks are the sweet smelling ones that can pass a spelling exam.
Geeno
@55 Seriously, Svensker. Nothing says free market like crushing the small businesses.
scav
The sacred free market they’re so keen on is apparently a market free not only from profit-killing regulations but also free from pesky competition that is deemed of the wrong sort.
ETA: Come to think of it, that’s their view of freedom of religion too.
PaulW
The joy of this for me is that this is the true free market in effect. A massive corporation bought off the politicians to basically kill competition, but the consumers – the ones who ought to have all the economic power anyway – would rather pour the corporate swill into the sewers and get the taverns to drop that brand from their taps. I wonder which of the major brands are grinning from ear to ear that they’re not getting dumped like MillerCoors.
This is why I usually yell and scream about boycotting crooked companies. Because boycotting actually works…
Monkey Business
I think Walker is going to try for Rick Scott’s approval rating.
Next up on his agenda: forcing the Packers to be sold to someone and moved to LA, then banning cheese and sausage.
I’m pretty sure that would start open revolt.
J. Michael Neal
“They won all the battles, but we had all the great songs.”
JenJen
I seriously cannot stop grinning.
Thank you, Wisconsin. :-)
Drc
If the Minnesota Vikings decided that they would like to move to Madison or Milwaukee and needed some tax payer money for a new stadium, why do I think for a high enough contribution that the fine Gov would roll over for the Mad town Vikes
Drc
Befuddled @24
It will take that beer a longtime to get to Lake Michigan. It’s on the way to New Orleans
Brachiator
The Beer Party. I’d join that.
vanya
“We are 45% of Germanic heritage. We are going to fight back hard for good, homegrown beer.”
If only real Germans felt that way. Their market has been consolidating terrifyingly quickly.