Why You Probably Won't Find Giant Alcohol Bottles In Alabama

Beer and how it is sold has gotten complicated since the first brewery opened in North America in 1692, per the Alcohol Professor. Today, there are lots of different breweries and you can buy beer by the can, the bottle, the keg, or a simple glass. Of course, the size of all of these containers has also gone through a bit of a renaissance over the years and it seems like the bottles grew bigger and bigger.

Per the New York Times, these bottles are often called large-format bottles and were initially associated with the "wine-ification" of beer, but they've clearly become more widely accepted over the years. According to Craft Beer Club, you can purchase a bomber, or a 22-ounce bottle. Vinepair notes you can get a 32-ounce howler or half-growler, a forty which is 40-ounces, and even a magnum which holds 50.7-ounces of alcohol.

Of course, every state has its own laws. If you are traveling to Alabama, you may want to plan accordingly because you can't buy giant bottles of beer or any malt liquor. The largest bottle you can purchase in the Heart of Dixie is 25.4 ounces, per AL.com.

Alabama's Gourmet Bottle Bill passed in 2012 which upped the amount of beer or malt liquor a bottle could contain for sale from 16-ounces to 25.4 ounces, per Birmingham Business Journal. AL.com reported this bill was largely to help out craft beer makers be more competitive. But according to MSN.com, its limitations may also have an effect on college kids. Specifically, they suggest that with smaller bottles, students are not able to play drinking games like the ever-popular Edward Fortyhands. Per Daily Nexus, the University of Santa Barbara's campus paper, this game is played by duct taping two 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor to your hands. If you want to take the bottles off your hands, you need to drink up.

Malt liquor, per the blog The Difference Between, has a much higher alcohol content compared to regular beer. In fact, malt liquor has upwards of 12% alcohol content compared to beer's 5%, so drinking 80-ounces of it out of the large bottles will affect those who play the game. The University of Alabama and its 38,000 students are at the top of Princeton Review's list of party schools and it might be easy to understand when the law might come into play.