Scott Walker’s Newest Target: Microbreweries
If there’s anything Scott Walker hates even more than labor unions and working people, it’s locally-made craft beer. Microbrews. You know — beer that actually tastes good because it’s brewed on a small scale, using quality ingredients, and the brewer has used his/her utmost knowledge and expertise to make an outstanding product. How un-American. Sounds like one of them wimpy socialist countries over there in Yerp; not the America I grew up in.
Real Men™ drink cheap carbonated bilge made by a gigantic mega-corporation. And they guzzle it by the case; they don’t sip it out of a glass and then savor the underlying flavors. Sissies!
Even worse, none of these microbrewers ever contributed anything to Scott Walker’s campaign, unlike MillerCoors, which gave him $22,675.
(Here’s another link.)
Using Scott Walker’s standard M.O., a provision was snuck into a Wisconsin state budget proposal on May 31st. If passed, this new law will crack down on those pesky microbrewers, who make up five percent of Wisconsin’s beer sales. The large corporate brewers want it ALL, God Damn It!
This law was supposedly written to protect MillerCoors from a power grab by Anheuser-Busch. What’s next, a law protecting Godzilla from Mothra?
The law will treat microbrewers as if they were large corporate brewers — only without the huge profits and the ability to purchase elections. MillerCoors and the Wisconsin Beer Distributors Association have instructed their legislative prostitutes to pass this law. MillerCoors doesn’t want any competition from people who make REAL beer, and the Beer Distributors Association wants to get its guaranteed 30% “commission” from every bottle of beer sold in Wisconsin.
Currently, Wisconsin microbrewers are allowed to sell their own beer at their brewery, and they can sell directly to restaurants and liquor stores. All of these practices will be forbidden under the new law.
And you thought Republicans were AGAINST “government bureaucrats meddling in the private sector.”
Since beer cuts across all political and socio-economic lines, this might be another unintended consequence for Walker and his fellow Kochsuckers. At a rally on June 4th, a speaker said:
“They came for our public utilities … and I did nothing. Then they came for SeniorCare and BadgerCare … and I did nothing. And when there was nothing left, finally they came for our beer. And that’s when I said, ‘It’s time for revolution!’ … This is the Wisconsin revolution, and it’s powered by beer!”
Labels: MillerCoors Wisconsin, Wisconsin Beer Distributors Association, Wisconsin craft beer, Wisconsin microbrew