montgomery brew pub

Montgomery, AL – www.montgomerybrewpub.com

I really hate to speak poorly of the beer here, because it’s the only place in Alabama to actually drink beer at a brewery.  Which is just pathetic.  The laws in this state are primitive and stupid.  But I digress.  I really wasn’t expecting much here.  Montgomery is sort of an arm pit, and I don’t think ‘good beer’ here.  So, to stay positive, I can say I wasn’t disappointed.  They actually attempted some cask beer, again possibly the only place in Alabama to do so.  So I hope they stay, and I have reason to have higher expectations.

UPDATE:  It’s closed.

Hurricane Brewery (RIP)

I was only able to visit this brewery once.  It has closed since I moved down here.  So instead of writing about this brewery, I’m using this space to rant about the Alabama beer laws that are making it difficult for Hurricane to re-open and for me to get a decent beer around here.  There are many shitty laws down here, but the ones that stand out are:

• No home brewing
• Breweries must operate in an historic building
• Breweries must have a restaurant that seats at least 80
• No bombers allowed.  in the entire state
• Beer festivals can only last 3 hours

How can you claim to be a real city with laws like this?  I blame this for Mobile – a growing city of 200,000 people – not having a brewery.  I can go on and on.  But I think my time is better served writing my representatives and telling them  how much money I spend out of state enjoying brews.  For more, check out http://www.freethehops.org.