What are you drinking RIGHT NOW?

[just brew it!]

Liquor stores cannot open before 10am are forced to close by 9pm every day and aren't allowed to be open on Sundays or holidays.

I live in a fairly conservative suburb of Chicago. Until about a year ago we had a local ordinance prohibiting sale of alcohol before noon on Sunday. The city council came to their senses and realized that everyone was just going to neighboring suburbs to stock up on beer for game day. They rolled the start time back to 8:00 AM -- EARLIER than many other suburbs in the area -- reasoning that this would keep more of the liquor tax revenue here. Surprised the heck out of me; until just a few years ago you couldn't even pay for liquor in the normal checkout lines at grocery stores (all alcohol had to be segregated in a separate area of the store, with a dedicated register just for alcohol sales). Guess things are loosening up a bit.

Edit: Oh, and Diet Mt. Dew...

[paulWTAMU]

Liquor stores cannot open before 10am are forced to close by 9pm every day and aren't allowed to be open on Sundays or holidays.

We do that too And grocery stores cannot stock anything over (I think) 13%, so basically beer and wine (Neither of which I can stand). It makes me sad, and I rather suspect it drives up the cost of liquor. And, at least here, something like 1/2 of all Panhandle counties are totally dry. Thankfully Potter county isn't and I live right on the border of it and Randall (which is dry).
Still beats Oklahoma.

[ludi]

"Blue laws" are weird that way. Aside from bars and food service/vending, which are a whole 'nother ball of wax, Colorado only permits full-strength carry-out liquor sales at one location per license, and only issues one license per individual and business entity, with all other locations capped at 3.2%. In practice this means liquor stores are always stand-alones, while grocers and convenience stores stock everything at one location only and a small selection of 3.2% beer and malt/wine cooler drinks everywhere else. Sunday sales above 3.2% were prohibited until just a couple years ago, when the legislature finally passed a bill to kill that restriction. A parallel bill to remove the single-site restriction was killed by the liquor store lobby, but that was kind of expected -- they didn't like the Sunday sales bill either, since it took away their only vacation day, but they knew they had to roll on one in order to quash the other.

Costco figured a way around the single-site restirction by contracting a private, independently-licensed liquor store to set up shop at each of their Colorado locations, and then supplying them with all of the standard Costco fare at wholesale. Now that Trader Joe's is serious about moving into the state I expect they'll finagle a similar arrangement at their stores...otherwise their grocery business will get eaten alive by Sunflower Market, which got here first.

[paulWTAMU]

I just remember one glorious liquor store in downtown Denver that was gigantic...and wonderful. Oh so wonderful.

right now I'm drinking water after taking benydryl. Ate something I should not have (no clue what the hell it was) and my throats all puffy. So drugs and water. Lots of both.

[Ethyriel]

[
I live in a fairly conservative suburb of Chicago. [...] until just a few years ago you couldn't even pay for liquor in the normal checkout lines at grocery stores (all alcohol had to be segregated in a separate area of the store, with a dedicated register just for alcohol sales). Guess things are loosening up a bit.

I vaguely remember setups like that at Jewel and Dominicks before I moved out here from Crystal Lake, but that was way back when I was 15. In Buffalo, where I have a lot of family, grocery stores only recently were allowed to carry beer at all, and I think wine too. In that case, it resulted in a lot of really good liquor stores with excellent selection and prices.

I'm glad we don't have much to compete with here in Tucson, besides a rather young beer scene. Though my local brew pub is meeting a lot of resistance about expanding into neighboring pads in the location they operate their brewery. Some of that must be because they're bordering the UA campus, because a couple other brew pubs in town are much larger.

[Jambe]

I'm glad I don't live in one of these states:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Alcoholic_beverage_control_state

Well, OK, not really, as I'm not that big into alcohol, all things considered. Still, I find that interesting.

[just brew it!]

I'm glad we don't have much to compete with here in Tucson, besides a rather young beer scene. Though my local brew pub is meeting a lot of resistance about expanding into neighboring pads in the location they operate their brewery. Some of that must be because they're bordering the UA campus, because a couple other brew pubs in town are much larger.

I went to Nimbus (both locations) last time I was out there. Seemed decent.

[Welch]

I guess Alaska isn't on that list, but we do have some restrictions that other states consider to be "controlling" and others consider to be too open. For instance, beer and liquor cannot be on normal store shelves in a grocery store. They have to be in a separate section of the grocery store that is meant for people 21 and older, they have their own cash registers. You can purchase other things in there (bringing your groceries in to buy with your alcohol). Its like an unwritten rule that you don't if you have a lot of stuff, unless you want to get dirty looks from people waiting to buy a few bottles of wine or whatever.

This blew my mind because when I was down in Washington state for some job training, I found that beer could be sold like soda in the grocery store, but liquor had to be sold in a separate segregated section just like Alaska. Some states apparently allow for BOTH to be sold in the grocery section out in the open.

I can understand why Alaska does it like this though, as we actually have the highest vehicle related deaths associated with alcohol. Hell we just had 4 young people driving a dodge neon get struck by a drunk driver who was in an F-250. Killed 2 of them on impact and the other 2 were hurt pretty damn bad. The drunk actually had a suspended license and had been recently out of jail for aggregated assault. Crazy stuff. People gotta learn to know their limit and not drive after drinking, something this state has always had a problem with.

[just brew it!]

Some states apparently allow for BOTH to be sold in the grocery section out in the open.

Illinois is actually like that, but many individual municipalities have stricter rules.

[Captain Ned]

Vermont is a "control state" but it really isn't that bad. No Blue Law days/hours restrictions beyond no retail alcohol after midnight (bars go to 2AM and if you need to make a retail beer or booze run after midnight, I impugn your planning skills) and stores are reasonably well-distributed both in geography and products. Groceries/C-stores/anyone else can sell beer & wine up to 17%; anything beyond that has to be purchased in a liquor store.

[just brew it!]

Vermont is a "control state" but it really isn't that bad. No Blue Law days/hours restrictions beyond no alcohol after midnight (if you need to make a beer or booze run after midnight, I impugn your planning skills) and stores are reasonably well-distributed both in geography and products. Groceries/C-stores/anyone else can sell beer & wine up to 16%; anything beyond that has to be purchased in a liquor store.

Given the prevalence of shift work (and flex time), hour restrictions have always seemed rather silly to me.

[Captain Ned]

Given the prevalence of shift work (and flex time), hour restrictions have always seemed rather silly to me.

And they might be to some point but we don't have Sunday restrictions or 3.2% rules or anything like that. That said, the bar not 2 miles down the road from me is popular with the 3rd shift at the IBM plant 4 miles in the other direction. At 8AM it's packed and hopping, 7 days/week.

EDIT: Bars & liquor stores can sell at 8AM. Retailers can start at 6AM.

EDIT2: And yes, US liquor law has essentially been ossified since 15 December 1933.

[JustAnEngineer]

Swamp Ape.

[just brew it!]

EDIT2: And yes, US liquor law has essentially been ossified since 15 December 1933.

Yeah, the only substantial changes that come to mind are legalization of homebrewing at the federal level back in the '70s (and at the state level in a few Bible Belt holdouts since then), and states raising their legal drinking age to 21 (which IIRC was indirectly driven by changes to federal highway funding rules, someone correct me if I'm wrong).

[graphicslite]

Just drinking water

[Captain Ned]

and states raising their legal drinking age to 21 (which IIRC was indirectly driven by changes to federal highway funding rules, someone correct me if I'm wrong).

We can thank then-SecTrans Elizabeth Dole & the Reagan Administration for that one. Raise your drinking age to 21 by sometime in 1984 or lose 10% of your federal highway funding. The change wasn't exactly indirectly driven.

[Ethyriel]

I'm glad we don't have much to compete with here in Tucson, besides a rather young beer scene. Though my local brew pub is meeting a lot of resistance about expanding into neighboring pads in the location they operate their brewery. Some of that must be because they're bordering the UA campus, because a couple other brew pubs in town are much larger.

I went to Nimbus (both locations) last time I was out there. Seemed decent.

If you're out here again, make sure to get to 1702. It's my regular haunt, and the selection is amazing. Plus they're starting to have some of their own beers trickle out from time to time which have so far been excellent (a citra hopped IPA and an imperial porter with mescal so far). Nimbus is ok, but none of their beers are anything exceptional, and they don't seem very interested in pushing the envelope. Thunder Canyon is about the same, but they have some pretty good special editions. Barrio tries so hard to make everyone think they're a badass brewery, but then neuter everything to make it accessible.

We just had Borderlands open a few months ago, but they have some serious QC issues. Dragoon is a little brewery opened up by an ex-brewer from Nimbus who got sick of their crap, and wanted to make some adventurous beers. We should be seeing their first batches in a couple weeks, and most of us out here are really excited about that.

[paulWTAMU]

alternating between jack daniel's honey whiskey and rum and coke. Liqour store had bacardi for 10 bucsk a 5th on sale, and the JD honeyed stuff for 15 a fith. I'd gone to find stuff from the liqour under 30/bottel thread but didn't see much of what got reccome3nded. So I tried old hands at those prices, cheaps buzz

[Jambe]

Just drinking water

Welcome! Water can often be quite amazing. People who have natural sand-filtered springs and whatnot out in the sticks usually treat them as treasures.

[paulWTAMU]

Water is a backer. Or a chaser.

edit: 1/2 a bottle of whiskey down. 1/3 a bottle of rum mixed with coke. in between is a gallon or two of water. I'm stll feeling it pretty good. Very drunk, not going for a hike or road cruising tonight. But man it feels good. had bacon, whiskey, and listened to blues. then moved onto hair rock and rum& coke.

[Ethyriel]

I had some Shenanigans and Ale Epeteois earlier on the way home from work. Now that I'm done moving all my furniture back after an A/C replacement and addition earlier in the week, and taking advantage of the moved furniture to tie all my cables, I think I need more beer. Good thing I have a Rare VOS in the fridge.

[Welch]

Who would have thought that what you are drinking RIGHT NOW would lead you back to visiting the TR forums!!! I'm drinking Svedka vodka and Cran-Raspberry (Ocean Spray). About 10 drinks in, nice and strong !. Also listening to Glitch Mob - Animus Vox on Pandora! Have a kick ass weekend guys. Christ, my grammar Nazi is still active while I'm drinking, any instructions on how to turn it off :O?

[Dizik]

Who would have thought that what you are drinking RIGHT NOW would lead you back to visiting the TR forums!!! I'm drinking Svedka vodka and Cran-Raspberry (Ocean Spray). About 10 drinks in, nice and strong !. Also listening to Glitch Mob - Animus Vox on Pandora! Have a kick ass weekend guys. Christ, my grammar Nazi is still active while I'm drinking, any instructions on how to turn it off :O?

Kudos on listening to the Glitch Mob. I only recently discovered them and have been listening to Drink the Sea like crazy.

I'm actually trying to not be a total fatty, so my in-take of soda has decreased drastically while my water in-take has inversely increased. Unfortunately that means that I'm currently drinking water at work. The water here isn't so good, despite going through a Brita filter.

[JustAnEngineer]

I've been working on a case of Sweetwater 420.

[bthylafh]

A bit of Laphroaig for lower back pain. It helped some.

Getting older is when your aches don't go away after a couple days.

[JustAnEngineer]

I'm just finishing the bitter dregs of a Sam Adams Coastal Wheat. Ick!

[just brew it!]

Flying Dog Garde Dog

[Ethyriel]

Oy, it's been awhile, but I need to escape the hell of this paper I didn't realize how much I screwed up until the last minute.

Right now I'm enjoying a bottle of Lumberyard Fireside Ale. It's no Firestone Walker anniversary ale, but it's close. Much better than the Great Divide 18th Anniversary I had last night, which was just poorly done. Recently I've also had Oomegang Art of Darkness which is absolutely amazing; Stillwater Existent which is almost as good and a very unique balance of toastiness, wild yeasts, and I think nugget hops; Mission Dark Seas which I really enjoyed, but not as much as Ale Epeteios; and Maui La Perouse White which is a surprisingly tasty white, one of my favorites in fact.

I've also had a couple brews from small local breweries, to varying success. The Oak Creek Citra Pale Ale was tasty and fresh, but was mildly infected. Dragoon's first two beers, an IPA and session ale were good enough to excite the hell out of me for our new brewery. But unfortunately, after hearing horrible things about the first few months of Borderlands, I finally tried one of their beers. Their vanilla porter was absolutely horrendous, tasting like nasty, medicinal vanilla extract without any beer flavors, much less porter, whatsoever.

[Ethyriel]

Flying Dog Garde Dog

How would you say a biere de garde compares to a saison or Belgian pale strong? This is the first I've heard of the style.

[Captain Ned]

Flying Dog Garde Dog

How would you say a biere de garde compares to a saison or Belgian pale strong? This is the first I've heard of the style.

I'd say your procrastination is not healthy. Lets just say that based on my college experience, I know what I'm talking about.