HILTON HEAD ISLAND — With the move to change South Carolina’s minibottle law, some people also are pushing to legalize higher-alcohol beer.

Georgia recently changed its law, raising the 6 percent alcohol cap on beer to 14 percent. That move has left South Carolina as one of only five states that strictly limit the beverage’s alcohol content, said Julie Bradford, editor of the All About Beer magazine and member of Pop the Cap, a North Carolina group organizing to get that state’s 6 percent alcohol limit removed from its beer laws.

Advocates say they are interested in high-end specialty beers.

“I think there’s a misconception that if a beer has more alcohol, people will get more drunk,” said John Watts, head brewer at the Hilton Head Brewing Co., “But you don’t sit around and pound a barley wine after you mow the lawn.”

Watts said some bars in California serve barley wine, which is about 8 percent to 10 percent alcohol, in an 8-ounce snifter rather than a pint glass. “It’s a beer to be savored,” he said. “It’s very thick and malty.”

Current South Carolina law allows the sale of beer only if it is 5 percent alcohol by weight or less, said Danny Brazell, a spokesman for the Department of Revenue.

That’s the equivalent of about 6 percent alcohol by volume, a more common measure, Bradford said.

That means many styles of beer that are popular around the world are unavailable here. Bradford said some of those include bocks, doppelbocks, imperial stouts, barley wines, many India pale ales and most traditional Belgian beers produced by monasteries.

Watts explained that the amount of malt determines the alcohol content of beer, but it also affects the flavor. More malt means higher alcohol, but it also gives beer a rich, sweet flavor totally unlike the light beers consumed by most Americans.

University of South Carolina professor John Lowery said he recently heard about North Carolina’s Pop the Cap and has asked for that group’s advice in starting a similar campaign here.

He is motivated purely by self-interest. “I’m just a person who enjoys a number of beers you cannot get in South Carolina,” he said.

Lowery said he knows it might not be easy to change the law. North Carolinians are entering their third year of campaigning.

And it has taken 10 years to get a proposed change in the constitution before South Carolina’s voters, who will get their chance this November to repeal the mandatory use of minibottles in all state bars and restaurants. South Carolina is the only state using minibottles.