Make Beer the Official Beverage of Washington State

Look, I know that down in Olympia the Washington State Legislature has more important things to do than pass a law making beer the official state beverage. Why then would they take the time to make coffee our official state beverage? That’s exactly what Barbara Bailey, a Republican House member from Oak Harbor, seeks to do. At the behest of a group of local high school students, Bailey and others have submitted a bill to make coffee Washington’s official state beverage: House Bill 1715. (Read the bill in PDF format.)

Beer would be a much more appropriate state beverage. I know that it sounds like a joke, but this is actually a rather serious matter. I have valid reasons why Washington should be the first state in the country (as far as I can tell) to have beer as its official beverage.

Hops are a huge component of our state’s agricultural profile. Washington is the top hop-producing state in the country. Not by a little, but by a huge margin. In fact, all of the ingredients required to produce beer are grown in Washington.
We currently have 137 breweries in Washington. The number of breweries increases regularly. I haven’t checked in a few weeks, so we may well have 140 by now. It is indisputably one of the only industries currently experiencing growth.
Craft beer is growing in popularity and breweries are now popping up in the most unlikely places across the entire country. For us, this is nothing new. Thirty years ago, when there was no such thing as a craft beer industry, Washington was at the forefront of what would become the craft beer revolution. We were a hot bed of craft beer before most of the country had ever heard of craft beer.
Washington is the only state in the country that has an official Beer Commission. Established by the Washington State Legislature in 2006, the Washington Beer Commission is the only commodity commission of its kind in the entire country. Obviously, the Washington State Legislature recognizes what a valuable commodity beer is to our state’s economy.

While some people may question the morality of having beer be the official state beverage, I would suggest that coffee offers no moral high ground. At least Washington has laws intended to keep beer out of the hands of teens and children. The fact that a group of high school students want coffee to be our state beverage should tell us something. I’m not sure exactly what, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t good.

Go to this website to locate your representatives. Send them a message requesting that they consider this decision carefully. For the reasons stated above, I intend to request that House Bill 1715 only be passed if it is modified to make beer the official state beverage.

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