Green Bay Press-Gazette - <B>State’s drinking culture remains firmly ingrained</B>

Posted Aug. 14, 2005

State’s drinking culture remains firmly ingrained

By Steven Hyden
Gannett Wisconsin Newspapers

Talk about perfect timing. Jesse Lisowe polished off a pint of Leinenkugel’s Honey Weiss just as a waitress came by asking if he and his friends wanted another round.

Why not? It was Thursday night, the unofficial start of the weekend, at The Bar On The Avenue in Appleton. Lisowe, 29, of Oshkosh was there to throw darts, hang out with friends and drink a little beer. A buzz comes cheap with the bar’s “double bubble” special, which gets you two drinks for the price of one.

Lisowe usually goes out three times a week. Bars are fun and in Wisconsin the alternatives are limited if you are young and single and don’t want to stay cooped up at home. “It is a good social gathering place,” he said. “Where else are you going to go?”

For many Wisconsinites, drinking and socializing go hand in hand. City-dwelling 20-somethings go out on the weekend to downtown entertainment districts packed with bars. Families in rural areas enjoy their Friday fish fry at the family tavern, where kids of any age can drink if parents and the bartender say it’s OK.

It is all part of a state drinking culture few question because it has always seemed to be there. Lifelong residents don’t always notice it, but newcomers do. Maria Elena Vega-Oxley couldn’t believe the number of bars she saw in the area when she moved to Dale from Chicago four years ago.

“Even in the really small, small towns there are a minimum of two to three bar/taverns in a two-block radius,” Vega-Oxley said.

Big binge drinkers

About a gallon and a half of beer is consumed here per capita each year.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wisconsin has the highest binge-drinking rate among adults in the nation, with 21.8 percent admitting they downed five or more drinks in one sitting in the past month.

It helps that beer is so cheap here. At 6.5 cents per gallon, Wisconsin has the third lowest beer tax. Since prohibition was repealed in 1933 the tax has been raised only twice, the last time coming in 1969.

When cheap beer leads to more beer consumption, drunken driving sometimes isn’t very far behind. In 2002, 4.5 percent of state residents admitted driving a car after drinking too much at least once in the past month; the U.S. median is 2.2 percent, USA Today reported.

German roots

Why do we drink more than people in most other states?

The most common explanation for Wisconsin’s drinking culture is the state’s German heritage. Germans made up the majority of immigrants who came to the state in the 1800s, and they brought their homemade beer with them. Hundreds of breweries popped up across Wisconsin, and each was a nerve center for their respective towns.

A brewery often was as important to a town as the church, offering German-Americans a place to congregate and catch up with friends and family, said Jerry Apps, a state historian who has written about Wisconsin breweries.

“They saw it as an opportunity for the family to get together,” Apps said. “The purpose wasn’t to see how much you could drink or how drunk you could get.”

Today, German-Americans make up 42.6 percent of Wisconsin’s population, according to the 2000 census.

Does this mean we can blame Germans the next time we drink too much? Not really, says Paul Schons, a German professor at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn.

“I suppose Germans do drink somewhat more, and it’s more a part of the culture than many other places,” Schons said. “(But) sometimes I think the stereotype is Germans do nothing all day but sit around and drink beer.

“Scandinavians drank their mead, the British drink their ale, the French drink their wine. It’s a fairly common thing to Europe.”

Beer ‘a state mascot’

Whether the drinking habits of German immigrants 150 years ago influence us today is debatable. But early Wisconsin settlers prized their beer and made a name for Wisconsin by brewing them.

For better or for worse, beer remains a calling card for the state, said Robin Shepard, author of “Wisconsin’s Best Breweries and Brewpubs: Searching for the Perfect Pint.”

“Culturally, when you think of Wisconsin, what are the first three things that creep out of your head? Packers, cheese and beer.”

“We’ve almost made beer out to be a state mascot,” said state Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, who unsuccessfully proposed raising the beer tax $1 a barrel (or 2 cents per six-pack) in March.

Berceau hasn’t given up. She wants tax money to go toward funding alcohol-abuse treatment. A study by the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington D.C., found that Wisconsin residents pay more than $825 million in alcohol-related health care costs annually, or $153.95 per person. The revenue raised by the current beer tax: $8.37 per person.

“I think what I’ll probably be known for is bringing this back every session,” Berceau said.

As far as Lisowe is concerned, Wisconsin’s drinking is under control. Five drinks in one sitting in one month? That’s not binge drinking in Wisconsin, he said.

“That’s like a weekend out.”

Steven Hyden writes for The Post-Crescent of Appleton.