The point is that we don't
discuss anything illegal here. What you chose to do is one thing, what you chose to believe is another thing, but yes, we don't
discuss things that are illegal here, whether it is distilling, or pot, or stealing cornies, or perhaps yes, announcing how much we brew.....
Or allow underagers to be on here.
And we do that for two major reasons.
1) respect for TX and the Mods here for putting together this wonderful supportive site. That is the biggest one...
We love this place and want to protect it.
2)Secondly we respect our hobby, and alcohol, and most of us understand the precarious razor's edge that it sits on. We understand prohibition and the fact that
40 years after prohibition was rescinded our hobby was still Illegal.
So that's why whether we agree with the laws or not we refrain from discussing anything that could give us a bad name on here.....
Remember homebrewing wasn't re-legalized after the Volstead act was repealed in 1933,
it wasn't legalized until 1978, and it took a lot of work in those 45 years to get it to happen....and despite it's federal legalization, it is STILL on a State by State basis.
Heck homebrewing was just legalized in Utah last year....and I think is still illegal in at least one state.
Some folks still think you can go blind drinking homebrew.
Other's can't distinguish what we're doing with making meth.
Hell even some cops look on what we're doing with suspicion.
Don't believe me? Check out this Cops episode if you haven't already....look at what "John Law" has to say about our little hobby. "The concotion he was making could be deadly..."
Hell, if MADD gets ever gets their way the oldschool version of prohibition may be like a picnic, compared to what it would be like in modern times. You think they'd let us make anything? (HomeWine making was sort of legal during prohibition as long as you didn't sell)
Look what may be happening in Canada;
DUI legislation may expand to allow random breathalyzer tests
No probable cause would be necessary to be forced to breath into a tube.
So yeah, some of us are protective of our good name...and work damn hard to elevate our hobby and beer culture in general.
Read this for some enlightenment...It was one of our members
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f19/ohio-university-homebrew-festival-shut-down-140105/#post1590903
And this from just a couple weeks ago
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/alabama-homebrewer-arrested-194144/?highlight=alabama
And finally. This IS the largest forum about the production of hobby alcohol...most of the time we rank #1 in a google search on homebrewring. And in this surveillance society we live in, I think that it is patently naive to think that the govment doesn't have a few surveillance bots pointed right at our forum looking for certain keywords....
So yeah, I refrain from mentioning how much I brew in any given year....It's really noone's business. Who knows what could happen down the line...I don't want the purtian booze police knocking on my door.
But if you don't respect the rules, I'm sure there's a few forums out there, that are a bit more lax, and maybe don't respect the hobby as much as we do.
But yeah, it smells like TROLL **** in here.....