beer

An Indiana Senate committee has overwhelmingly voted down legislation that would have allowed grocery stores, pharmacies and gas stations to sell cold beer.

Indiana is the only state that regulates the temperature at which beer is sold.

Grocery and convenience stores and pharmacies can sell cold wine and warm beer. But the sale of carryout cold beer is primarily limited to liquor stores, whose owners say expanded cold beer sales would force many out of business.

Kentucky has the highest percentage of children who have had a parent in jail. A report released April 25 by the Annie E. Casey Foundation puts that figure at 13 percent, nearly double the national average of 7 percent.

That means there are 135,000 kids in the state who have had a parent who has been incarcerated.

Terry Brooks is Executive Director of Kentucky Youth Advocates. He says one of most important ways to address that problem is job training for the parents.

“Are there some things that we could do, while that citizen is locked up, to think about when you get out, where can you go to work, what skills do you need, can we use your time in prison to develop those skills?” says Brooks.

Local communities can provide employment opportunities when parents are released from jail. Brooks says the number of incarcerated parents in Kentucky is a call to action.

Stephen Jenkins watches a timer count down to the exact moment when he’ll drop a bucket of hops into a batch of what will become an amber ale.

“This one’s about nine pounds of a couple different kinds of hops,” said Jenkins, brewer for West Sixth Brewing in Lexington.

He’s perched on top of a catwalk overlooking a vat of wort — the primordial ooze that will be strained, left to ferment with yeast and eventually canned or kegged.

“It makes 40 barrels at a time, which is about 80 kegs, 80 half-barrel kegs, and we do two brews a day. So we’re going to do about 80 barrels of amber today,” Jenkins said.

West Sixth Brewing made about 2,000 barrels of beer in its inaugural year in 2011. This year, the company is on track to make 12,000 to 13,000 barrels.

Despite the brewing company’s rapid growth, it’s still a tiny carbonated bubble floating in an ocean dominated by two global breweries — Anheuser-Busch Inbev, the maker of Budweiser; and SABMiller, which makes Miller Lite.

A Lexington brewing and distilling company is setting up a beer production line in Bowling Green.

Alltech, which produces Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale, delivered a production-level brewing system Wednesday to WKU’s Center for Research and Development. No date has been set as to when the production line will begin operating, though it could start sometime this fall.

When complete, the brewing system would be the largest to be located at a university.

Alltech is leasing the space from WKU and will begin a craft beer brewing operation, while also paying the renovation and installation costs.

Meanwhile, some WKU administrators have been working on a proposal for a major and minor in brewing and distillation. Potter College of Arts & Letters Assistant Dean Andrew McMichael says the university has been seeking input from industry leaders.

The opposing sides of the 2015 beer battle topped the list of lobbying spending during the first two months of the Kentucky General Assembly, according recently released numbers from the Kentucky Legislative Ethics Commission.

Spending reports only become available a month later because of filing deadlines.

Anheuser-Busch, Kentuckians for Entrepreneurs & Growth and Kentucky Beer Wholesalers were among the top-five spenders during the session, dropping a combined $483,830 on lobbying expenses and advertising in January and February.

Anheuser-Busch unsuccessfully fought against a bill that will forbid out-of-state beer brewers from owning distributors in the state. With the backing of craft beer and local distributors, the bill was signed into law by Gov. Steve Beshear in early March.

Both Anheuser-Busch and Kentuckians for Entrepreneurs & Growth aired TV and radio advertisements across the state, with AB over doubling KEG’s advertising dollars.

Anheuser-Busch says it will have to close the distributorships it owns in Louisville and Owensboro by the end of this year, but is still “reviewing its legal options,” saying that the law violates the Kentucky and U.S. Constitutions.

About $4.2 million was spent on lobbying in total. Here’s a rundown of the top spenders.

A battle over beer is brewing in Frankfort.

Kentucky microbreweries say out-of-state breweries like Anheuser-Busch shouldn’t be able to own beer distributors in the state—something in-state microbreweries aren’t allowed to do.

A House bill filed by Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, would close what some call a loophole in Kentucky law, which permits out-of-state breweries to own their own distributorships.

Daniel Harrison, owner of Country Boy Brewing in Lexington, said the bill would make large companies play by the same rules as companies like his.

“If Kentucky breweries can’t own distributorships, or microbreweries, why do we let out-of-state guys?” Harrison said.