The spirit of beer.

• Position: Stateline - Malt beverages - Brief Article

There's beer and then there's spirits. The problem is in classifying malt beverages such as Mike's Hard Lemonade, Smirnoff Ice and Zima for tax and license purposes. Nebraska has been struggling with what to do with these "malternatives" for some time. These drinks start as brewed malt beverages, but are flavored with distilled spirits. They generally have the same 5 percent to 8 percent alcohol content as beer. In Nebraska, beer is taxed at a rate of 31 cents a gallon; spirits fetch $3.75...