Max Baucus founded the Senate Small Brewers Caucus. | Alan McCormick/ Growlerfills.blogspot.com Pols raise a glass to craft beer

To your average Hill politician, a cold microbrew is something to enjoy after a long day’s work. But to Sens. Max Baucus and Mark Udall, it’s a rising industry that does exactly what this economy needs: creates jobs.

The Democrats from Montana and Colorado, respectively, have been raising a glass to independent craft brewers lately, highlighting the role such companies play in job creation and economic growth — while also calling for legislation that cuts taxes for small businesses.


Such boosterism comes with perks.

Baucus, who founded and serves as co-chairman of the bipartisan Senate Small Brewers Caucus, attended the Missoula Craft Beer Week in Montana earlier this month, where he milled local barley at Tamarack Brewery in Lakeside and spiced one of its beers, Wakeboard Wit — a hefeweizen, or unfiltered wheat beer.

At the Garden City Brewfest, meanwhile, Baucus poured beer for attendees while touting the state’s small brews.

“We want to be able to export our beers — Montana craft beers — anywhere in the United States,” he reportedly said, “because we have so many craft breweries and because it’s good beer and great brands, too.”

But it’s not all play. Baucus met last month with the Brewers Association, a trade group, to discuss challenges facing craft brewers.

“Small breweries are engines for our economy and use Montana’s world-class grains to create delicious beer and good-paying jobs,” he reportedly said afterward. “In Montana, we’re home to more small breweries per capita than almost anywhere in the nation, and it’s important to make sure they have the tools they need to thrive.”

Meanwhile, Udall — who introduced the Brewers Excise and Economic Relief Act of 2011, which calls for cuts to the per-barrel tax on beer —in January visited The Crabtree Brewing Co. of Greeley, Colo., where he and owner Jeff Crabtree discussed the challenges small businesses face in getting loans and how to boost brewing as a growing part of the state’s economy. And last week, he met with lobbyists from The Beer Institute to discuss job creation, the upcoming farm bill and the Simpson-Bowles plan.

“I would want to put Bowles-Simpson in place immediately,” he said Tuesday on CNBC’s “The Kudlow Report,” adding that the legislation would cut spending and simplify the Tax Code, which would benefit small businesses.

OK, enough policy. Which craft brews are their favorites?

Baucus’s favorites include Miner’s Gold Hefeweizen from Lewis & Clark Brewing, Blackfoot IPA from Blackfoot River Brewing, and Bayern Pilsener from Bayern Brewing in Missoula. Udall cited New Belgium Brewing’s Fat Tire and Crabtree Brewing’s IPA.

POLITICO contacted other members of Congress who are strong supporters of craft brewers and found that some aren’t big beer drinkers. In fact, a few are teetotalers.

Rep. Jared Polis, a member of the House Small Brewers Caucus, famously shared a beer-bong of Coors Light with Stephen Colbert on his show in 2009, but according to a spokesman, he doesn’t drink. He prefers kombucha tea instead. (Still, Polis always serves beer at events, such as Fat Tire, Dale’s Pale Ale, Ranger IPA, 1554 Enlightened Black Ale and Denver Pale Ale, “although the selection is sadly limited when we’re buying out here [in D.C.],” his spokesman said.)

Sen. Mike Crapo, co-chairman of the Senate Small Brewers Caucus and co-sponsor of the Brewer’s Employment and Excise Relief Act, drinks only one kind of beer, according to his spokesperson: root beer.

What about Sen. Jeanne Shaheen?

Last February, the New Hampshire Democrat made a Super Bowl bet with New York Sen. Chuck Schumer where the losing senator had to buy every member of the Senate a craft beer, Shaheen spokesman Mark Gordon recalled. Shaheen even trash-talked about it, saying, “The only thing sweeter than the taste of craft beer brewed in the Granite State will be the taste of victory when the Patriots beat the Giants.”

Shaheen lost that bet and had to pick up the tab for every senator on New York craft beer from Brooklyn Brewery, Blue Point Brewing, Saranac Matt Brewing, Captain Lawrence Brewing, Ithaca Beer and Brown’s Brewing.

Turns out Shaheen, despite her support for local breweries such as Smuttynose Brewing in New Hampshire, isn’t “that big of a beer drinker,” Gordon said.

This article tagged under: Politicians

Beer