PORTLAND, Ore. – Oregon House Speaker Dave Hunt's office has confirmed that the beer tax will not come up for a vote this session.

"In today’s climate, when Oregonians are struggling to get by, it became clear to Speaker Hunt and House leadership that this wasn’t the right time to do (the beer tax). We have a path to a balanced budget without it," said Geoff Sugerman, Hunt's communications director.

Cosponsors of a bill to raise Oregon’s beer and wine tax by about 1,900 percent concede that the tax, which they see as modest and necessary to combat addiction, probably won’t get a vote. Portland brewers raised their pints at the news.

The current tax stands at about $1.30 a keg. The proposal would have raised that to about $25 per keg.

The national average beer tax is about $4 per keg.

Oregon House Bill 2461 would have raised money to go toward funding drug and alcohol prevention, treatment and recovery programs, all of which are woefully underfunded here, cosponsors and supporters say.

Cannon and other legislative sponsors said the state suffers about $4.15 billion a year in lost earnings, pays $8 million in health care costs and nearly a billion dollars in law enforcement to combat drug and alcohol abuse.

A number of nonprofit groups, including Oregon Partnership, supported the legislation. Prevention is the best cure, these groups claim, and recovery programs have suffered in light of the state's current fiscal outlook

"Increasing the beer tax is one of the most logical steps that can be taken in the goal to stabilize addiction recovery services,” said Stephanie Soares Pump, who serves on the Governor’s Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse Programs.

Cannon disputed claims by the Oregon Brewer's Guild that the tax would have raised the cost of a pint $1.50 to $2, as brewers claimed in February.

A compromise on the beer tax, reached between its legislative proponents and opponents, would have exempted any brewery that produced less than 2 million barrels of beer per year.

That would have exempted each and every microbrewery in Oregon, including major labels like Widmer Brewing Co. and Deschutes Brewing, a Cannon spokesperson said.

"We weren't looking to pick on beer drinkers. But Oregon beer drinkers pay substantially less than the average American (pays for beer)," an aide said.

When asked why the exemption was not included in the original legislation, Cannon's office said they had hoped such changes would come about during committee hearings.

Supporters had sought to specifically exempt Oregon beer makers from the tax but that would have made it unconstitutional.

Oregon's beer tax has not been raised in more than three decades, according to the bill.

Brewers claimed it would have been the single largest beer tax hike in U.S. history.

Local beermakers were caught off guard by the news and thanked lawmakers for "making the right choice."

"Lawmakers were presented with a lot of information and they made the smart choice given the current economics and the importance of the beer industry to the state," said Chad Kennedy, the brewmaster at Laurelwood Brewery in Northeast Portland. "It’s the right outcome. It’s about Oregonians, it’s about jobs, it’s about an industry that is really important to this state."