Flavored malt beverages under attack
Pub Date: 5/1/2006
Flavored malt beverages such as Smirnoff Ice have been making news in California. There, some groups are campaigning via the courts to have the malt-brewed products reclassified as a spirits rather than a malt beverage.
Spirits giant Diageo recently filed a counter argument to the suit, contending the beverages are properly classified along with beer because they are in fact, like beer, brewed using malted barley and contain about 5 percent alcohol by volume, also similar to beer.
While under-aged drinking has declined significantly over the past several decades, the malt beverages, also called "malternatives," are a popular choice with minors who drink illegally, particularly among girls, studies have shown.
Those who launched the suit, the Coalition on Alcopops and Youth, claim that, because the drinks are consumed by youth, the marketing behind them has, hence, targeted youth. Further, the suit would prohibit the beverages from being advertised on television.
Plaintiffs are also pressing to have the malt beverages taxed the way spirits are, at $3.30 per gallon as opposed to the 20 cents per gallon rate paid on beer, despite the flavored malt beverages having a similar alcohol content to beer. They are suing California s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to force them to change current practices.
Reclassifying malt beverages as spirits would take them out of off-premise retail outlets licensed to sell beer, which would reduce under-aged access, plaintiffs are arguing.
Smirnoff Ice, according to the company, does not contain vodka, although the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) allows the malt beverages to contain flavor derivatives of spirits which may account for up to 49 percent of the alcohol content.
This new regulation, effective January 3, 2006, "permits the addition of flavors and other nonbeverage materials containing alcohol to beers and malt beverages. Malt beverages that contain not more than 6 percent alcohol by volume may derive no more than 49 percent of their alcohol content from flavors and other nonbeverage materials."
One bill in the California State Assembly would earmark higher taxes collected on malt beverages, should they be reclassified, to pay for programs aimed at reducing under-aged drinking. Last year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a measure which would have defined "beer" in California to include flavored malt beverages.
Source: The Montana Tavern Times, May, 2006, published monthly by Continental Communications, 125 W. Granite St., Suite 102, Butte, MT 59701.