Business

PATRICK WALTERS Associated Press Writer

PHILADELPHIA — A real brouhaha has beer lovers in the City of Brotherly Love frothing over with anger.

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Bartender Sean McGuinness pauses while working at the Resurrection Ale House in Philadelphia. An anonymous complaint that the Philadelphia bar was selling beer that has not been properly licensed with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board led to raids on three upscale bars last week.

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Under Pa. liquor law, manufacturers of malt or brewed beverages must pay $75 annual fee to register each brand.

State regulators say it’s a simple matter of making sure bars and beer manufacturers aren’t scamming the system. But bar owners say hard-to-spell beer names and typographical errors show how archaic Pennsylvania’s Prohibition-era liquor laws really are.

It all came to a head after an anonymous complaint that a Philadelphia bar was selling beer that had not been properly licensed with the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, an agency created in 1933 to regulate the sale of alcohol.

That tip led to raids last week at three upscale bars, where police confiscated three quarter-kegs and 317 bottles of beer that were believed to not have been properly registered with the state. Raids at Memphis Taproom in Philadelphia’s Kensington section, Local 44 in west Philadelphia and Resurrection Ale House downtown caught the couple who run them by surprise.

“I feel like there are a lot of typographical errors that caused this,” said Leigh Maida, who received calls from staff around midday March 4. “The laws were really developed before there were so many kinds of beers.”

Under Pennsylvania liquor law, manufacturers of malt or brewed beverages must pay a $75 annual fee to register each brand. About 2,800 beers are now registered in the state; manufacturers submit applications to the liquor board, showing the agreement they have with the wholesaler.

In the recent raids, a tipster contacted the state, said Sgt. William La Torre, commanding officer of the Philadelphia office of the Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, which enforces the liquor laws. Statewide, police say there are typically fewer than 10 complaints a year about unregistered beer.

Maida and her husband, Brendan Hartranft, don’t know who filed the complaint. They believe the problem largely results from archaic liquor laws and misunderstandings about formidable beer names that often get abbreviated.

The liquor code, they say, is no match for beers with names like Dogfish Head Raison d’etre and a dark ale called ’t smisje BBBorgoundier.