Wegmans now sells beer. For your pleasure and convenience beer is now available in smaller amounts, no case lots of suds. Many pizza joints, convenient stores, and diners likewise sell beer, both for on and off premises consumption. Hey, do you realize, and I'll bet most don't, that Boscov's sells beer in its basement restaurant in Wilkes-Barre? If they no longer do, that's a new development. 
Wegmans isn't the first supermarket in Pennsylvania to sell beer. I used to buy beer at Madzin's Market on Prospect Ave. in Scranton over twenty years ago(Hello, Joe Madzin!). Digressing, as is my usual process, Madzin's bought all the old Schumacher recipes for bologna, knockwurst, and liverwurst. When Schumacher's sadly shut down, the Madzin family purchased the recipes and took to making and smoking some fine German sausages.Back to beer.
While not the first, Wegmans, unwittingly or not, has opened the door for every supermarket in Pennsylvania to now successfully apply for and be granted a beer license.
Many are pro, many are con. I have no position. However, if one chain can, why can't another, regardless of size? If a chain can, why not the single-location shopkeeper? You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. No bell yet rung has been un-rung.
If you've ever the had chance to travel the west, as in Utah, Idaho, etc., you'll find beer for sale in gas stations, gift shops, barber shops, and just about any other place with a cash register and someone to make change.
That Pennsylvania's liquor laws are considered archaic by many is no secret. Calls for the abolishment of our PLCB State Store system have been in the air for decades. My opinion is that fixing something unbroken is generally a fool's pursuit. Why bother?
Interestingly enough, the loudest cries for deregulation, really complete elimination of the state store system, come from the advertising sector. Newspapers, television, radio stations, etc., all want to see it trashed. You can figure that one out with ease; competition means windfall advertising dollars. Fine, we all need to make a buck.
But I want to get beer where and when it suits me. More importantly, far more importantly, I want a really good selection of imports and micros by the six, or even by the single. I don't want to make the plunge into a case unless it's beer I like.
If and when the plunge is made, I have several friends who are in the beer distribution business, and I am always more than happy to spend my money with them. For those who may not know, like out-of-staters, a distributor can't sell you a six-pack, although those I know sure wish they could.
Saturday, I bought beer at Wegmans.
Saturday I got carded.
Two months ago last week I turned 58.
As I stood at the checkout, they carded a guy in front of me, clearly also an easy 50 years old or more. He was getting cranky over the process.
They're carding everyone, right?
Wrong.
My wife bought a six-pack of pale ale a few weeks ago. She didn't get carded. Somehow, she slipped through the cracks. I believe a head could roll for that failure. In a gesture of great magnanimity, I will not disclose the day, time of day, or exact date of the uncarded purchase. Nor will I reveal the gender of the person conducting the transaction.(The pale ale was Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. Good, but not exactly to my taste. Hoppy I like, the excessive sweetness I do not. Other IPAs bring a better balance.)
When Wegmans announced that its W-B Township beer license was hanging on the wall and they were good to go, they also claimed they would be carding everyone, which sounded silly to me. But I suppose their thinking is "Better we embarrass one 73 year old than allow a 31 year old to sneak through with a twelve pack of Coors Light."
Frankly, I don't care one way or the other. The only thing it means to me is that I now have to have my wallet with me whenever we go to Wegmans.
Saturday's sampler was a four-pack(yes, four bottles in a carrier)of Samuel Smith's Oatmeal
Stout, brewed in Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, England. I've heard this stout raved about for years on end. Some will say it is a stout that defies description, that it's that good.I don't think so. While good, well-brewed, incredible head with complex flavors, it finishes way too sweet for my tastes. It is supposed to have a bittersweet finish. For me, too heavy on the sweet, too light on the bitter.
In closing, let me drift back to when I was considering a run for political office. A gentleman who would have been my opponent said to me, "About the worst they're saying out there about you is that you like beer."
Gee, you don't suppose, do you?
