Pretty soon, Gadsden will be living the high life. That’s right, beer is coming to the city by the river.

It’s not Miller, but something, shall we say — if not more exotic — closer to home.

Jason Wilson and Zack Folmar, two Alabama boys, are proud to give you Naked Pig Pale Ale.

It is their company and the maker of the Pig, Back Forty Beer, that will be opening a brewery in Gadsden in the near future, says Wilson.

It’s a move that’ll be good for the local economy, initially providing 10 to 15 jobs, with the possibility for 60 jobs in a few years.

You can already get your Naked Pig in Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Auburn, Florence, Dothan and about a dozen locations in Calhoun County, including the Peerless and Damn Yankees in Anniston, Hero’s, Effina’s, Pelham’s, The Vault and Cooter Brown’s in Jacksonville, and the The Alexandria Package Store.

But the pity is, the brewery could have already been in historic downtown, right there on Broad Street, where it could have had a bigger economic impact and added to the allure of that downtown area.

Lo and behold, though, it was not to be. And you can thank the Legislature and the antiquated and anti-free market laws of the state of Alabama for that.

Oh, there was a chance this year to modernize the ancient beer laws of the state, but the Legislature failed.

Just as it failed to implement constitution reform, a ban on PAC-to-PAC transfers, giving subpoena power to the Ethics Commission, or requiring ethics training for legislators.

It is disappointing, to say the least. But the thing is, while most of these measures are designed o bring about good governance, they affect your life in a major, but not in a direct, way.

Beer, however, is something most people can get at least one hand around. When the lawmakers deny a beer drinker his suds, then one tends to become more politically engaged.

Sure, not everyone drinks beer, and some even think it an evil brew, bad for society.

The fact is, however, it is legal and it raises revenue. It employs people and, most would agree, tastes good and can be a lot of fun — when you drink responsibly, of course.

And there’s this: The beer business is growing, and it isn’t all coming from sales of Miller or Budweiser. In recent years, smaller and medium-sized breweries have started to pop up all over the nation, and some have started to gain footholds.

In Atlanta, the Sweetwater Brewery started in the mid-1990s and is now part of the local culture. It has also become a thriving business, employing more than 60 people, according to the brewery.

But it’s not just Atlanta. The rest of the Southeast seems to be doing fine growing small breweries. In fact, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida claim 70 breweries, according to Free the Hops, an interest group that cajoles the Legislature toward allowing a more modern way of conducting the beer business.

In contrast, Alabama has only four, with only two of them allowed to serve you beer.

The problem is that prohibition-era laws strangle the small brewers and what are known as brew pubs in Alabama.

The Brewery Modernization Act was suppose to set all of this straight, but the lawmakers were too busy not acting on dozens of other pieces of legislation to act on this one.

(Free the Hops, by the way, has had some success. Last year, the group spearheaded the drive to raise the maximum alcohol content in beer from 6 percent to 13.9 percent to allow for so-called high-gravity beers to be sold in the state.)

Specifically, the main problem with breweries in the state is that they are prohibited from selling beer on the premises.

That means you can’t have a groovy tasting tap room like Midtown Atlanta has in the Sweetwater Brewery, a place that adds character and revenue to downtown. It also means that Back Forty can have its brewery in downtown Gadsden but can’t actually be part of the social fabric of the city, nor can the city benefit from the novelty of the place being there.

Jason Wilson, a native of Gadsden, is committed to the city and wants to commit his business to the city.

He points to what Sweetwater has done for Atlanta and what Sierra Nevada has done for Chico, Calif., and Fat Tire has done for Fort Collins, Colo.

Back Forty, he says, can do similar good things for Gadsden.

Here’s to many more rounds of Naked Pig. (Clink!) Anniston Star Editor at large John Fleming explores area business and economic topics in this weekly news column. Send topic suggestions to johnfleming2005@bellsouth.net