While I don’t share Lew’s froth­ing hatred of tax­a­tion, I must say that I’ve reached my lim­it with the PLCB. What was the last straw, you ask? I have nev­er had a good local dis­trib­u­tor in my life. I had a flir­ta­tion with Soci­ety Hill Bev­er­age, but even their supe­ri­or selec­tion (by PA stan­dards) and rea­son­able prices aren’t enough to keep me from envy­ing my friends in Jer­sey, or from rel­ish­ing trips to Helen’s home state too much. (Lit­tle secret: Vir­ginia is for beer lovers! Bet you did­n’t know Dog­fish Head has a string of brew­pubs down there!)

No one retail­er is per­fect. I’ll accept that for all intents and pur­pos­es beer snob­bery is the new record snob­bery. You can read all about it, sali­vate over every bou­tique brew, but the the real chal­lenge is to find it in the wild. Might not be so hard at the local tap­rooms, but try find­ing a bomber of Dog­fish Head­’s lat­est, Bitch­es Brew, any­where around town. It’s point­less to try.

I’m not sure what the answer is. I’m not typ­i­cal­ly a fan of pri­va­ti­za­tion. Sure, there’s malfea­sance in the pub­lic sphere, but we can influ­ence that. Look around at what’s hap­pened in the free mar­ket in the past ten years and ask your­self if they’re doing much bet­ter. What I will grant is that folks in oth­er states with more lib­er­al alco­hol sales laws tend to have a bet­ter over­all expe­ri­ence. Would it kill some­one to let me buy a mixed six pack, instead of hav­ing to buy a whole case of pump­kin ale?

As it stands now, plen­ty of Penn­syl­va­ni­ans become boot­leg­gers rather than con­form to local laws. It’s too tempt­ing to sneak over the Jer­sey or Delaware bor­der to pick up your favorite beer and wine in stores that are frankly much bet­ter than any state store or dis­trib­u­tor. Why not just reform the laws and find a way to make that sys­tem work as it does in neigh­bor­ing states?

I will say this: boot­leg­ging is much eas­i­er now since the advent of E‑Z Pass. You don’t even have to wait in pesky toll lanes!