| APRIL 1998 | VOL.3 NO.4 |
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April 1998 Home
Cooking With Beer
Excerpts from Stephen Beaumont's Brewpub Cookbook, available this month at bookstores across the United States, from Siris Books.
Kitchen Table Tasting
On the Road Again
Taste of the Month
Some Foods and Drinks Make Bigger Impressions Than Others
Quote & Comment
SBWoB's Newest Addition
Feedback
Your Comments, Criticisms and Contributions
Selected Events
What's Hot in the World of Beer this Month
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Stephen Beaumont's Brewpub Cookbook |
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A Taste For Beer |
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Great Canadian Beer Guide |
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A World of Beer |
Quote & Comment -- SBWoB's Newest Addition
The Quote
"[Big Alcohol] likes to look just at the individual. That's the point of its messages to 'drink responsibly' and 'know when to say when.' But it's not simply a matter of individual responsibility. Because this is an addictive substance. And because it can be purchased 24 hours a day and is sold in colourfully packaged containers that appeal to kids. These are the kinds of things that we're trying to target, much as in the tobacco debate."
-- George Hacker, director of the alcohol-policies project of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, quoted in The New York Times Magazine, March 22, 1998
The Comment
This is the kind of myopic thinking that really gets my back up. Now, I'm no great friend of Big Alcohol -- in fact, many big beer and liquor ads disgust me as much as they might Mr. Hacker -- but I cannot accept the blanket assertion that alcohol is addictive, because to do so is to completely ignore the context in which North American society places beer, wine and spirits.
On this continent, we seem to labour under the misguided notion that we are protecting our youth by making it illegal for them to buy alcohol until they are of a certain, randomly-selected age (ranging from a low of 18 to a high of 21). I maintain, as I have for years, that doing this only encourages a "forbidden fruit" mentality that makes illicit consumption all the more attractive to people under the legal age and encourages those who have just reached the proscribed drinking age to take advantage of their "privilege" as much and as frequently as possible. This, I believe, is a major problem in North America.
And as far as over-drinking across age lines goes, I have seen many a study which indicates that the biggest problems are associated with "binge drinking," or in other words, Friday and Saturday night alcohol splurges. If addiction to alcohol were really the problem, wouldn't these "bingers" be going through withdrawal from Sunday to Thursday? I would think so, and thus I suggest that the problem is not some imaginary addiction, but an attitude that makes it a social norm to drink heavily on the weekends and abstain mid-week.
In the long run, the problem as I see it lies not with alcohol per se, but with our society's view of alcohol. And while some of the blame for this warped view does most certainly rest at the feet of irresponsible alcohol advertisers, our distorted public policy view must certainly be the greater culprit here.
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Stephen Beaumont reserves all rights that pertain to the text of his articles, in any form that it appears.
