The offense is DUI, not DUIB
I am usually behind any reasonable program to educate people against drinking and driving. With that said, I was a little insulted by the latest publicity stunt pulled off by the Bennington, Vermont Police Dept.
The Bennington PD decided to start “profiling” beer drinkers this past holiday season by distributing beer glasses emblazoned with the Bennington Police Department logo. A friendly reminder to all of us heathen beer drinkers, the scourge of society, not to drink and drive. Why not do it for wine glasses which are small, easy to drink and contain the same amount of alcohol as a whole pint of beer? Or cocktail glasses that deliver the strongest dose of alcohol per serving?
This is just one more example of the ongoing bias against beer and beer drinkers in our society. Why does it exist? Did we earn it? Even the big three US brewers apparently think the same way about us. Look at the way they market to us (successfully, by the way). They use mindless, sophomoric characters, dogs, twins, bikinis and, of course, it’s less filling — so drink more! They know that when they convince you to drink beer with almost no flavor, you can and will drink much more of it. Craft beer drinkers are less likely to binge on double IPA.
I am certainly not arguing that beer drinkers are not a contributing factor when it comes to DUI; but beer drinkers are not the sole cause of the problem.
So, I guess since beer has been the drink of the common man for over 6,000 years, and common men are the perpetrators of DUI, then the beer drinker must be the perpetrator? This must be the twisted logic going on in the minds of the police department in Bennington.
The money would have been better spent on simple education about body weight and the relative alcohol strength among beer, wine and cocktails. I find that most adults do not understand simple alcohol by volume, nor do they know how many drinks of certain ABV they could consume for their weight. Then there are those who just know they are hammered, like Mel Gibson, who was drinking a bottle of tequila (not Tequiza) when pulled over and arrested for DUI recently.
The offense is DUI, not DUIB (driving under the influence of beer). It is a serious issue in this country and it can ruin lives. Singling out beer drinkers on this issue is short sighted and ignorant of the real causes.
Check out the American Homebrewers Association’s online BAC (Blood Alcohol Content) calculator for Beer Drinkers: http://www.beertown.org/education/calc/bac/bac.aspx
Taste Beer!
January 16th, 2007 at 11:33 am
After an inauspicious start, this blog is getting worse. If you have nothing better to write about than a harmless PR campaign IN VERMONT it would be best to abstain from writing anything.
If for some unknown reason you feel compelled to write about a non-event in Vermont, then you should refrain from inane paranoid whining about beer drinkers being “profiled” and singled out for scrutiny.
If you must engage in infantile whining, then you should stick to that and not combine it with the insufferably pretentious claim that — unlike you– most people fail to understand the effects of various types of alcoholic drinks.
Drink your beer, don’t drive and, in the future, sober up before publishing the nonsense you write under the influence.
January 16th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Dear Humulus, I am sorry that my post threw you for a loop-ulus! Congratulations! You are my very first “flame”.
It seems as though you harbor alot of anger. I would first suggest that you push away from the keyboard, take a deep breath and a sip of some craft beer,served at the proper temperature and out of the proper, non-frosted, beer-clean glass…
You may have (but I don’t think so)missed the larger point of this post. The Bennington PD incident is just one small example of the all too common negative stereotype of the beer drinker. I did ask the retorical question “did we earn it?” and also made the observation that we have been lapping up swill beer in this country for years based on the idiotic commercials that seem to work all too well…
Thanks for the comment…
January 16th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
“Negative sterotype of the beer drinker”? As beer is by far the most commonly consumed alcoholic drink in this country what exactly is the stereotype?
I think pretty much everyone understands that beer drinkers run the gamut from annoying twits looking to impress by acting as though “their” beer should monly be served in the holy grail and requires years of dedicated study and palate refining to appreciate to 17 year olds looking to get wasted.
Whether one drinks Belgian Dubbels that are two precious to squander on the unwashed or 40s of malt liquor, however, one can become impaired and should not drive. That’s the same as it is for wine drinkers whether they prefer a vintage French pinot noir or a bottle of MD 20/20 or for liquor drinkers whether they down Grey Goose Martinis or Vladimir screwdrivers.
No one is singling out beer drinkers, but it is common knowledge that a lot of people drink beer and common sense to discourage them from driving after they have had a few.