Why does the TABC hate beer?

Rob Walsh of the Houston Press wrote a great article this week titled "Texas Wants Beer". It details the ongoing problems and struggles that Texas micro-breweries continue to have with the various Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission (TABC) rules and restrictions. A quote from a citizen appointee to the TABC review committee sums up the TABC quite well, "a corrupt system that no longer serves the public interest".

The additional side story from Walsh titled "Texas Wants Beer: Change This Law", describes the worst of the bad beer laws that local micro-breweries would love to have changed, the Texas law that prohibits breweries from selling beer directly to the public at the brewery. Texas wineries were able to successfully change the law a few years ago and now they are able to sell bottles of wine at the wineries, but the eight micro-breweries that now exist in the state do not have the resources or political clout that the wineries have, so the attempts to change that law have so far, failed. They also don't have the resources and more importantly, the influence that the beer distributors have as they're the main opposition to this law getting changed.