2017 is here and that means a bunch of new laws coming into effect for not only Californians but people across the country. Alcohol is always a hot topic for new legislation whether it be the banning of certain forms, in the case of Palcohol, or the loosening of regulations and restrictions as to where alcohol can be purchased or served. Here in California, the only law that passed concerning beer was Bill No. 1322, which allows beer and wine to be served in barber shops and salons as long as it’s offered free of charge. While this has little impact on the beer community as a whole, we are all for small businesses being allowed to make their customer experience even better.
Higher ABVs
Most of the laws have positive effects on craft breweries. Tennesee took a step in the right direction by finally allowing breweries to make beer that is above 6.25%. Until this past week, forget about getting a Tennessee double IPA. Furthermore, many of your favorite, local IPAs (Relay included) are 7% and above and that says nothing about Imperial Russian Stouts, Imperial Red ales, and most Strong ales we’ve come to expect from craft breweries. Previously, a brewery would need a high-gravity license to make these beers, which is essentially a distiller’s license. These licenses are more expensive and harder to get, so breweries simply weren’t brewing high ABV beers. With the new law, expect to see lots of new styles of beers being brewed in this southern state, much to the delight of Tennessee craft beer drinkers.
Normal Beer in Grocery Stores
Oklahoma is finally joining most of the rest of the country that allows beers above 3.2% ABV to be sold in grocery stores. Until this last week, people could only get beers that were above 3.2% AVB in liquor stores and even then it was only allowed to be sold at room temperature. Okies are leaving behind Minnesota, Kansas, Utah, most of Maryland, New Jersey, and Arkansas. These last three have laws that restrict grocery store chains to two liquor licenses per company. Why do these states still have such restrictive laws on their books? The opposition is usually the mom and pop liquor stores that would be negatively impacted by beer being sold at other, and let’s face it, more convenient, outlets.
Tax Benefit for Small Breweries
New York City is taking care of their small brewers with a new law that just passed giving them a 1 cent kickback on every bottle they sell. As our grandmas told us, pennies do at some point add up and this tax benefit could mean big savings for small brewers in the Big Apple. In fact, Stephan Hindy, from Brooklyn Brewery said the new law will save them $250,000 this year. Yeah, pennies!
Big Beer in Missouri
Finally, there is one beer law that went into effect in Missouri that isn’t positive for craft brewers. Big beer will always find a way to smother the competition and they got a win with the Missouri cooler law that went into effect a couple of days ago. This law allows breweries to own and lease cooler space to stores…in the stores. We will give you one guess as to which breweries are able to afford to build coolers in stores and then lease them to the store. AB InBev and MillerCoors were the big proponents of this bill, which is a surprise to no one.
The new legislation states that the brewery which owns the cooler in the store cannot prohibit the store from carrying other beers in that cooler but craft breweries are just not buying it. Big Beer has too much of a history of playing unfair and trying to stack the deck in their favor to trust that they won’t try and “influence” the store in other ways to carry only their beer in those coolers. This influence can come in the form of kickbacks, cheaper prices on beer, marketing benefits and lots of other under-the-table methods.
While some people have said that this law benefits stores which might now be able to afford to expand their beer sections, it’s clear to us that Big Beer is benefitting the most from this new law. A law like this passes under the guise of people getting more beer choices in their local store which could theoretically carry more beers in their new cooler. Unfortunately, it will likely play out that this bill reduces the variety of beers sold at these stores.
So let’s celebrate better beer and more choice that most states voted in and keep a watchful eye on the laws that benefit Big Beer.