Suddenly everything just spiraled out of control

The last two weeks have been filled with activities and news. I'll briefly mention the big one hitting the homebrewing community of Oregon and that is the reinterpretation of the ORS 471.403, which states:

"No person shall brew, ferment, distill, blend or rectify any alcoholic liquor unless licensed so to do by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. However, the Liquor Control Act does not apply to the making or keeping of naturally fermented wines and fruit juices or beer in the home, for home consumption and not for sale.”

This has ultimately meant that the homebrew and wine-making competitions have been cancelled because OLCC has interpreted that judges are considered "public" and removing alcohol from the home is illegal. Needless to say this has caused a flurry of worried emails, calls for civil disobedience, push to write our state representatives to put forward a new law to amend the current and, suggestions for circumventing the current law until a solution is reached. In the meantime brew clubs have said that members cannot bring their homebrew to meetings. All competitions have been canceled for the foreseeable future.

Personally, I think that this whole thing came down because someone kept asking the OLCC what if questions until finally the OLCC had to come down with a definitive answer, after 30 years. Just me speculating, not substantiated in any way. What has been really funny is reading the string of emails from the two camps: the let's make change in a way that works with the system, write your rep, be proactive in working with our government; and the camp that tosses out ideas to hold underground competitions, who to complain or blame, devising ways to have judging that involves way more effort than is reasonable to expect of anyone.

I'm hopeful that the next year will resolve this in time for me to be able to submit to competitions next year.