This And That Re. Beer

I'm totally falling behind in my beer-related posts. Frankly, it's about all I can manage these days to post anything, let alone about beer (and it's probably obvious by now that the presidential campaign is much on my mind.) (*1)

But I want to point out two pieces about beer that are worth reading. Jeff Alworth at Beervana alerted me to them, so tip o' the mug to Jeff

. One article is about the politics of the three-tier/distributor system. (For those just tuning in, Cindy McCain's wealth comes from her family's Anheuser-Busch distributorship, so there's been more than a little print about the three-tier system lately).

The other piece comes from a British blogger and is about beer and "class" politics in the United Kingdom, but is worth reading because the author's point is certainly applicable to the U.S. It's worth reading, as is Jeff's comment on it.

As always, I don't necessarily agree with or endorse the entire contents of either piece, but I'm all in favor of thoughtful expression of ideas. So have at it! And again, thanks to Jeff for the fodder.

Added a few hours later: I'd forgotten that Jay Brooks also commented on the Reason magazine article; you can read his post here. And Jeff points out that Patrick Emerson, of the Oregon Economics Blog, has also weighed in.

Again, thanks to Jeff for doing his bit to keep me up-to-date. I'm especially grateful to him for tipping me off to Patrick's blog. I'm totally in favor of academic types doing their bit to communicate with us real folks (me being an escapee from academia and doing my damndest to make history accessible to everyone.)

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*1: So is my new book. I'm pretty much buried in it, and there are only so many hours in the day, and the meat book gets priority....