Tuesday Wisconsin brewers organized a protest that harkened back to the Boston Tea Party and drew attention to a proposed law they opposed.

Wednesday that bill was tabled by the Senate Committee on Transportation, Tourism and Insurance.

The Brewpub Tourism Development Act would allow Wisconsin brew pubs to have up to six locations and produce up to 10,000 barrels of beer a year. Under current law, brew pubs can have no more than two locations if they produce more than 4,000 barrels of beer a year. The bill’s supporters said it would lift a production ceiling faced by Great Dane Pub & Brewing Co., which this year opened its third brew pub in the Madison area. Other brew pub and small brewery owners said Great Dane’s problem should be fixed. But they said the proposed legislation’s 10,000-barrel limit could affect their growth plans, especially for brew pubs seeking to also sell their beer in packaged form at liquor stores and other retail outlets.

Support Your Local Brewery has issued an E-Action Alert for Pennsylvania.

Here are the basics:

The Pennsylvania Senate is set to vote on a transportation funding bill that includes a provision giving Allegheny County (which includes the city of Pittsburgh) the authority to levy a 10% tax on alcoholic drinks poured within that jurisdiction, to be used for transportation projects. This proposal, like many tax increase provisions, will almost certainly have a detrimental effect on the local businesses, in this case breweries, brewpubs and retailers of alcoholic beverages, as more people will be unable, or unwilling, to spend significantly more for a drink. It is also conceivable that consumer choice will suffer within Allegheny County, as some businesses find their ability to remain in the market compromised.

If you live in Pennsylvana you can help fight this by contacting your state senator immediately to express your opposition to the 10% Drink Tax. This could be voted on today. To find your contact information, go to http://www.legis.state.pa.us/ and look to the far right-hand top corner of the page for the “Find Members” resource.

More from the alert:

The following information has been provided by Sean Casey, Founder and Owner of the Church Brew Works in Pittsburgh, a leading opponent of this proposal:

The “10% Stealth Tax” on beverages served in the hospitality industry is very close to coming to a final vote on the Senate Floor. Allegheny County is the only county being taxed 10% to fund the woes of the transportation industry; no other county in the state is being isolated like we are. Don’t ask the hospitality industry to bail out the mismanaged transportation business. You as the consumer will get saddled with this tax without any feedback. Currently, your State Senators don’t have any idea of the true amount of revenue it will generate, they don’t know if it applies to a bottle of wine, they don’t even know the language of the bill but most are lined up to vote yes.

Please contact your State Senator and, if you live in Allegheny County, let County Chief Executive Dan Onorato hear about it at (412) 350-6500 or [email protected].

A group of Wisconsin brewers blasted open barrels of beer on the docks of the Milwaukee River in their own version of the Boston Tea Party.

They did this to protest a proposed bill they said would create complications for startup breweries.

The measure would divide small breweries into two licensed classes – those who want to serve food as brewpubs and those who seek to bottle and distribute their product on a larger scale. Startups would have to immediately declare which class they were in.

“Every business takes on a life of its own,” said Jim McCabe, proprietor of the Milwaukee Ale House. “For the guy that wants to start a brewery tomorrow, he’s got to make decisions early in his business life that aren’t possible.”

The portest was serious, and important to the future of small breweries in Wisconsin, but it’s OK to giggle for a moment at this line from the story:

“One tourist boat full of onlookers yelled ‘Beer!’ with a woman opening her mouth in a vain attempt to reach the fountain of foam more than 20 yards away.”

This is science, so we don’t recommend reading these sentences if you’ve been drinking:

Researchers at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) have devised a way to quickly measure and track the quality of fermenting liquids, such as beer, without having to draw samples from a batch. Sampling fermenting liquids is necessary to ensure quality, but it can be time-consuming and potentially contaminating. By using ultrasonic backscattering, a method of reading sound signals as they bounce off targets and back to a sensor, the PNNL team’s system avoids these drawbacks and gives the brewer greater control over the fermenting process.

Here’s the full explanation.

And Robert Cannon, a brewer at the Boston Beer Co., says that it could make a difference: “A real-time, in-line sensor is something I couldn’t imagine any brewer not being interested in.”

A former brewer for Coors has started his own brewing company, Naked Lion Brewing, in Memphis, with his beer brewed at City Brewing in Wisconsin.

The first beer, Copper Flask, is described as “a full-bodied lager that uses a sour mashing process similar to the one used to make some whiskeys.”

Tony Vieira, who has an MBA from Vanderbilt University, financed the $500,000 start-up himself to maintain equity in the company.

The Associated Press revisits the ongoing story about how, with metal prices rising brewing companies expect to lose hundreds of thousands of kegs and millions of dollars this year as kegs are stolen and sold for scrap.

Here’s why it makes a difference to you:

Craft brewers are anxious to solve the theft problem because as much as 40 percent of their business is tied up in keg sales, triple the industry average, said Ken Grossman, founder and owner of Sierra Nevada Brewing Co.

His company, based in Chico, Calif., expects to lose at least 3 percent of its kegs each year and often must wait months for replacements because it orders in smaller batches.

The thefts couldn’t come at a worse time because the craft beer segment has outpaced growth in the domestic market, he said.

“If you can’t meet the need, you’re not going to grow much anymore,” Grossman said.

The price scrap yards pay for stainless steel has steadily grown for a year, peaking at about $1.50 to $1.70 a pound last month, said Marty Forman, president of Forman Metal Co. in Milwaukee. But that has dropped to about 50 to 70 cents a pound recently, which could provide some relief to frustrated brewers, he said.