Malt Beverages

I was half listening to NPR this morning and heard something about a vote to change the status of malt beverages in Utah. I interpretted it as the 3.2 rule being overturned. This rule limits the beverage that can be sold in grocery/convenience stores/some restaurants to 3.2 percent alcohol by volume. This means that there is a whole class of low alcohol content beer and malt beverages marketed in Utah. Restaurants with hard liquor lisences and package stores (State stores) may sell normal content beer and other alcoholic beverages. I've been trying to untangle Utah liquor laws from the mythology. There are further rules about how alcohol can be served in restarurants and different classifications of restaurants (private clubs).

Anyways, the 3.2 rule is not being overturned as I had hoped. Nope, the State liquor regulators have voted to pull flavored malt beverages of the shelves of grocery and convenience stores (they were already less than 3.2 percent) because they are marketed to appeal to minors. There was some talk of taking this to the legislature, but that would have opened up the issue to unfortunate debate, so the requlators are just going to go forward based on the Alcoholic Beverage Control Comission vote.

Correction: "Also you refer to the alcohol limit in beer as 3.2% by volume. That's incorrect. The alcohol measurment your thinking of is by weight. Utah beer available in grocer/convenient stores maxes out at 4.0% by volume. Or 3.2% by weight. those are two different types of measurment." That's according to Mikey. I'll have to ask him what the impact is on the beer. Mikey seems to keep abreast of state/local liqour laws. He scooped NPR here. He also has some information on local beer related events.