There's been a lot of hand wringing since BBD disclosed the Senate Finance Committee's published options of vastly increasing beer taxes and possibly equalizing them with spirits. The Brewers Association's Charlie Papazian wrote in the Examiner last week that it would take $5.40 in income to pay an additional $2 a case in excise taxes, due to income taxes, other taxes, and the markup on the $2 tax. In fact, Charlie calculates that current excise taxes mean that you would have to earn $8.06 to spend $5.00 on a pint. That raises the current tax burden on beer to $5.04 for a $5.00 pint, when you include all taxes