BLOUNT COUNTY, Alabama -- An Alabama man who said a 2010 arrest for homebrewing cost him his dream and tens of thousands of dollars was actually running an illegal still, according to Blount County District Attorney Pamela Casey.

Kade Miller, indicted on a charge of felony possession of a still in a dry county, pleaded guilty last week to criminal possession of alcohol in a dry county, a misdemeanor.

Miller, now the head brewer at Railyard Brewing Company, a Montgomery brewpub, told AL.com earlier this month that what he actually had was a large-scale homebrewing setup, which Blount County Sheriff's deputies confused for a still. He said that the felony charge forced him to spend thousands on a lawyer, and the brewing equipment the deputies seized cost him over $8,000.

Miller said that he had hoped to perfect his homebrewing recipes so he could open his own brewing operation.

If indeed Miller was only making beer, he would be one of the only homebrewers known to have been prosecuted for the offense.

When AL.com first wrote about Miller's case, Casey declined to comment. Now that it has been adjudicated, she said, she wants to set the record straight.

Miller is trying to play the victim and twisting facts, she said, and the equipment in his house was a still not a home brewery. “He wasn’t making beer. He was making whiskey and white lightning,” she said.

See update below for Miller's response.

Casey pointed out that, in addition to the alleged still, deputies seized a half dozen military-style rifles and a pistol from the residence as well. “If he were just home brewing, what would he need all those guns for?”

She also pointed out that deputies searched the house after Miller was arrested in Trafford, a nearby small town, on a municipal possession of marijuana charge. Officers “had information” that Miller obtained the marijuana from the house where the alleged still was found.

She declined to say where this information came from. She also declined to supply pictures of the equipment seized by the deputies.

The log of items seized by the deputies, a public record, is inconclusive as to whether Miller was brewing or distilling. It says the deputies took a “homemade still,” but the log does not describe in detail its constituent parts. The log also lists “containers containing beer or whiskey.”

The log does list corn sugar, which is commonly used in amateur stills, but the ingredient can also be used in brewing.

Asked why Casey dropped the felony still charge if she had incontrovertible proof, she said it was a question of priorities. She said that she has been working through a backlog of cases since she took office in 2011, and a liquor violation is simply not high on her list of cases to pursue.

“I only have so much time to allot to jury trials. I have to be careful with my jury time,” Casey said. “There comes a time when I have to say, does this illegal alcohol still take precedence over a murder, a robbery a manufacturing (a controlled substance) case.”

Miller’s attorney, Tommy Spina, said that he is happy with the plea agreement, saying that the alcohol possession charge was far more appropriate than the felony, considering the facts of the case.

3:10 p.m. update:

Miller maintains that his set up was exclusively for homebrewing. The only liquor in the house that he knew of, he said, was some rum that his wife brought back from the Philippines.

He said that there was some equipment that could have been mistaken for part of a still to the untrained eye. The set up used two copper coils called heat exchangers used to control the temperature of the liquid at various stages of brewing, he said.

"The design of that could actually be very close in configuration to a distillation worm," he said, but "any avid homebrewer would have been able to tell you what they are for."

Miller readily admitted that he broke the law by brewing, an act whose legal consequences were exacerbated by the fact that he was doing it in a dry county.

Whether or not his setup was a brewery or a still might be a purely academic argument.

Alabama code under which he was charged makes no distinction between the production of hard alcohol and beer in dry counties. The law states that "it shall be unlawful for any person ... (to) have in possession any still, apparatus, appliance or any device or substitute therefor to be used for the purpose of manufacturing any prohibited liquors or beverages."

Had Miller been in a county where the sale of alcohol is legal, he probably would have been charged with a misdemeanor.

6:35 p.m. update:

Astute AL.com reader Doc found an online article in the Blount Countian that includes a photo of the equipment seized from Miller's house. The stainless steel equipment clearly belong to a brewing set up, as do the glass flasks.

In the photo, Blount County Sheriff Loyd Arrington poses with a jar, filled with a clear liquid, that authorities said they seized from the residence.

Miller said that the jar in the photo looks like a Georgia Moon whiskey container. Georgia Moon brands itself as a legal moonshine and comes in a mason jar. You can check out what their jars look like here.

Miller said that you can even see part of the label on the jar Arrington is holding.

"I don't even remember having any of that in the house, so I don't know where they got it from," Miller said.