[Calendar update got derailed because of work late last week. WILL be up in the AM. GUARANTEED. Oh, and you may want to check out the Buy Beer page this morning.]

We’ve all read for months that beer is recession-proof relative to other “commodities.” And that may or may not still be the case . . . at least for craft beer. Andy Crouch cites numbers from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel showing a 5% sales increase for craft beer from 2007 to 2008. Dogfish Head, for one, expected to be well into double digit growth, perhaps among the leaders of the pack. Macros, on the other hand, experienced major losses. An example of this: net income for Heineken sank 74%.

Can anything possibly stop the craft beer machine as we move along 2009? If the sagging economy gets much worse, one would have to think that a full year’s worth of sales figures might show craft beer sales leveling out.

The real wild card, however, might be all the legislation that is currently being discussed in Washington and among various state governments. The economy has crippled local governments and some of them are turning to so-called sin taxes for relief.

According to Bloomberg, “Kentucky last week approved a new 6 percent levy on all store-bought beer, wine and spirits, and at least 18 other states are considering proposals to charge drinkers more for liquor to narrow deficits. New York plans to more than double its beer and wine tax, while Oregon may increase its surcharge to $49.61 per 31-gallon (117-liter) barrel from $2.60.”

Part II of this ‘special report’ will go deeper into what is happening state-by-state. Watch for it in the next few days.