This Saturday, August 13th, 2011 is the Sixth Anniversary of POP THE CAP!
Pop the Cap was a grassroots movement started in 2003 by about 40 beer lovers to lift North Carolina’s 6% alcohol by volume cap on beer. Thanks to this group and the thousands of other NC craft beer lovers who joined forces with them, Governor Mike Easley signed House Bill 392 into law on August 13, 2005, lifting the 6% ABV cap to a more-reasonable 15%.
I asked Sean Lilly Wilson, the Chief Executive Optimist at Fullsteam Brewery, and creative force behind Pop the Cap to share this thoughts on this significant day.
What inspired you to pursue Pop the Cap in NC?
Sean: I just thought the alcohol cap was a really dumb law. I was just getting in to craft beer, and the discovery that you couldn’t buy or brew one-third of the world’s beer styles seemed so bizarre and antiquated. So I started asking around about it. I had just started working part-time at All About Beer magazine, and I asked Daniel Bradford if he agreed it was time to challenge the 6% alcohol by volume law.
Within a couple of weeks, Daniel, co-founder Julie Johnson, myself, and around 40 craft beer enthusiasts (many of them homebrewers) gathered on a dreary February day in 2003 to talk about how to change this Prohibition-era legislation. That was the spark.
What do you think were the crucial elements to Pop the Cap legislation passing?
Timing. We gathered in early 2003 and gained momentum over the spring and summer. But it was too late for us to have an impact that calendar year. 2004 was a “short session” in the NC legislature, which essentially means that changes to the General Statutes are limited to bills that impact state funding (not policy matters like ours). So 2005 was our target year. Had we pushed too early, our energy would be for naught.
Grassroots marketing. Effective lobbying is about capturing people’s interest and attention. Legislators and constituents are busy people. How do you get the public rallied, engaged, and focused on the talking points? How do you ameliorate the concerns of legislators about raising the allowed alcohol percentage on beer in a Southern state? Pop The Cap was as much a marketing campaign as it was a lobbying effort. One day I heard two legislators chatting informally down the hallway. One said to the other, “What do you think about that “Pop – The – Cap” bill? I didn’t hear the other gentleman’s answer, but it didn’t matter. To me, they were talking about the issue. That was the victory. The rest of it was cake, because it’s not terribly hard to convince people that a six percent alcohol cap on beer was, in fact, a dumb law.
It has been amazing to see the rapid growth of the craft beer industry in NC since Pop the Cap passed six years ago. Why do you think this piece of legislation has had such a profound influence on the NC craft beer scene?
Sean: I don’t think the cap had a profound influence on the NC craft beer scene. North Carolina had all the fundamentals already in-place. Removing the 6% alcohol cap simply freed the industry to do everything it was already doing, to reach its full potential as “The State of Southern Beer.” Breweries like Highland, Duck-Rabbit, Foothills, Red Oak, Weeping Radish, and many more were already shaping North Carolina into a great beer state. Retailers and restaurants like Tyler’s, Barley’s, and the Flying Saucer created great craft beer culture. And leaders like Daniel Bradford of All About Beer / World Beer Festival educated customers.
Other states have recently lifted their cap and not had this blossoming of craft beer, so it’s not like lifting the cap suddenly creates a great beer state. Removing the cap simply gave breweries, retailers, restaurants, and wholesalers a level playing field. Again, the fundamentals were already in-place: we have an educated populace, a significant tourism trade, passionate industry leaders, and brewery-friendly beer laws. That’s why North Carolina is a great beer state.
What craft beer trends do you see in other states that you would like to see pursued next in NC?
Sean: Certainly the push toward local, seasonal ingredients — that’s our core focus at Fullsteam. North Carolina was once a major hops-growing region, but post-Prohibition problems with blight pushed the industry toward drier climates. However, science has advanced a ton in the past 80 years, and there’s reason to believe that North Carolina can once again grow hops, barley, and other beer ingredients. My vision is that North Carolina will develop a Beer Economy that truly begins in the Southern soil and ends with a pint of fresh, local beer.
This is the perfect time to plan on spending your weekend in the Triad Area. The special release of Olde Rabbit’s Foot is this weekend! You can get this special brew on tap this Friday at Foothills Brewery beginning at 7pm. Some of the biggest craft beer fans from inside and outside NC will be there to celebrate. 22oz bottle sales will begin at the brewpub on Saturday at 10am. They will sell out fast so get in line EARLY! See what makes this collaboration beer so special in this one minute video put together by Ryan Richards.
After you have purchased your bottles of Olde Rabbit’s Foot, make your way over to the Twin City Taps Beer Fest. It begins at noon and is just five blocks away from Foothills Brewery. Be sure to stop by the NC Brewer’s Guild and say, “Hey”. We just got in some brand new NC Beer Fan t-shirts that we will have at our booth.
