A proposed Regina microbrewery is facing opposition as it attempts to receive planning approval. This opposition comes from a woman using the “think of the children” gambit, suggesting that having a brewery in the neighborhood would lead to drunken highschoolers pounding craft ales and getting snooty about the amount of hops in their drink. That, or she just doesn’t want to have high school students drinking, ignoring the fact that high school students generally are going to be going for drinks that are a bit less expensive than anything a microbrewery would deliver, such as a mass produced ale scrounged together from the fridge in the garage, carefully chosen so their dad doesn’t notice he’s missing a few. Any microbrewery is going to do more of its business with slightly pretentious 30 year-olds than 16 year-olds going to a house party. As someone in the former category, I could really go for more microbreweries in the province.
My obvious bias towards supporting more craft beer in the province means I’ll naturally support any microbrewery that wants to set up, especially if they do wheat beer or stout. But let’s ignore my certain bias on this subject and consider the doomsday scenario put forward by this Regina resident. What if the kids all flock to craft beer? I might actually argue that this would be a good thing. If teenagers are going to be drinking anyway, there are some positive implications that come from going for premium products.
This beer is going to be more expensive than your typical can of Bud Light. As a result, a high school student’s alcohol budget – best described as limited – will buy a smaller amount of expensive, high-quality craft ale. That would mean you would rather savor it, and be much less likely to deploy it in games of beer pong or similar – also if you buy a darker beer it’s impossible to chug, something I discovered once at a high school reunion. As a result, even if the kids are drinking, they would be drinking less, both to preserve their budget and because it’s much more enjoyable to appreciate your fine alcohol rather than pound it down in a desperate attempt to gain enough confidence to talk to the cute girl from third period.
So kids would be drinking less, getting less drunk, and doing so less often. That’s a win, isn’t it? If we’re trying to reduce the rate of alcohol abuse in the province, making alcohol less attainable is going to be the way to do it. This beer is going to be more expensive, and if we create a generation of beer snobs we’re going to have a bunch of people who wouldn’t lower themselves to drinking some mass produced lager, so they will willingly avoid much cheaper products. The result would be that the kids who get hooked on the expensive beer would spend their entire lives enjoying the finer alcohols in life and generally spending more money in province on less beer overall.
This is all being silly, of course, no microbrewery would willingly sell to a teenager. It’s only slightly less silly than someone claiming a microbrewery would cause all the children to become budding alcoholics. These breweries don’t benefit high school students, a high school student’s pilfered beer is going to be cheap and efficient. This is a business for a cultured gentleman with impeccable tastes. It’s going to appeal to me, not any teenager.
