The spirit of beer.
There's beer and then there's spirits. The problem is in
classifying malt beverages Malt beverage is an American term for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic fermented beverages, in which the primary ingredient is barley, which has been allowed to sprout ("malt") slightly before it is processed. such as Mike's Mike's may be: - Mike's Hard Lemonade Co., a manufacturer of alcoholic beverages
- Mikes (restaurant), a restaurant chain in Eastern Canada
Hard Lemonade, Smirnoff Smirnoff started as a vodka distillery founded in Moscow, by Piotr Arsenieyevich Smirnov. The Smirnoff brand is now distributed in 130 countries and includes flavored vodka and malt beverages. It is now owned by English drinks giant Diageo. Ice and Zima for tax and license purposes. Nebraska has been struggling
with what to do with these "malternatives" for some time.
These drinks start as brewed malt beverages, but are flavored with
distilled spirits. They generally have the same 5 percent to 8 percent
alcohol content as beer. In Nebraska, beer is taxed at a rate of 31
cents a gallon gallon: see English units of measurement. ; spirits fetch $3.75 a gallon. "Nebraska can't
be a leader in this instance," said Kathy Siefken, who represents
the grocery industry. Creating a different, more stringent standard in
Nebraska will chase malt beverage products out of the state and hurt
retailers, she said. Help is on the way. The reds just passed new
regulations in January.
COPYRIGHT 2005 National Conference of State Legislatures
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 2005, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.
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