Given the pedestal beer is put on around these parts, not that I blame ya, but would you consider it a waste to cook with beer? I am a cook, so I love it!

As far as my actual argument, which you never really counter, I stand by all of it. I read the comment you included in its entirety before writing my post and it doesn’t contradict anything I wrote. Any decision not to use union labor was not made by Ale Asylum but by an affiliated party. The other questions you bring up are simply straw men.

“I work for IBEW Local 159, the electrician’s union in Madison. Two of our contractors contacted the general contractor for the Ale Asylum project to get the materials to bid the job. They were told that there was a hold up on the blueprints and then the job was awarded with them never receiving the information to allow them to bid. So no union electrical bid the project because they were denied the opportunity to bid. That is what was unfair at this project. Yes you list a couple of contractors that are union, but the vast majority of the workers and contractors at the job are nonunion. Many receive no health insurance or pension or any other benefits from their contractors. To often this model is used – no benefits, no apprenticeship training, lowest wages. This low road model allows cheap contractors to undercut responsible companies that pay benefits and to then not even let union companies bid is even worse. Ale Asylum may not have actively known that the general contractor they hired did this, but we were there to raise that awareness. Yes, companies don’t know everything that their suppliers do – the UW using sweatshops for UW merchandise is a classic example. But we need to bring it out and ask for businesses to do the right thing.”

Your opinion piece is fraught with emotion that, unfortunately, undermines and poisons much of your writing. I wonder if anyone affected by the financial crisis feels that private, nongovernmental companies should be allowed to conduct business as they see fit? I wonder if Otto’s father—the lifelong trade unionist—would be happy with Ale Asylum’s handling of this situation?

As for the dragging products into political fights, I can agree that in this case Ale Asylum had no cause to be targeted. But if a corporate entity decides to wade into the political realm they are most definitely fair game. My father has owned his own business for close to 30 years and he NEVER displays any corporate political preference nor does his firm belong to any partisan organization. As an owner he would be well within his rights to do so if he chose, but any consequential revenue loss from aggrieved clients would be rightly deserved. He always taught me that there was no advantage to alienating one side of the spectrum over something so meaningless as politics.