Help Us Free The Hops

Free The Hops | Alabamians For Specialty Beer (FTH) is a grassroots, non-profit organization whose mission is to help bring the highest quality beers in the world to Alabama. Commonly referred to as craft beers due to the skill and artistry required to brew them, they are also appropriately classified as specialty or gourmet. You might think of them as the Mercedes of beers.

The Trappist ales of Belgium are excellent examples of the beers FTH seeks to bring to Alabama. Made by Trappist monks, they include Chimay Grand Reserve, Westmalle Dubbel, Orval, and Rochefort 10 to name just a few. Savored and enjoyed like the finest wines or scotches, they are inarguably among the best beers in the world.

You may have never heard of Trappist ales because currently none of them are sold in Alabama. Yet our neighbor to the east, Georgia, sees all of these specialty beers plus many, many more. In fact, only 1 or 2 of the top 100 beers in the world (as rated by BeerAdvocate.com) can be found in Alabama.

And it might surprise you to find out that these fine ales made by Belgian monks are prohibited from being sold in Alabama. By law, they simply cannot be sold here. That is what FTH is trying to change. We want to give Alabamians the option to choose the Mercedes of beers.

The world's finest and most expensive beers are prohibited in Alabama as result of the state's current alcohol by volume (ABV) and container size limits. Visit our missing beers page to learn more about how FTH is seeking to change these laws and bring world class beer to Alabama.