Minnesota Star Tribune article about potential brew pub law changes

Looks like they edited this again, it had some pretty big factual errors. IIRC, it said that by 2000 Summit made up 1% of total US beer sales.

 

Mark Stutrud's comments are disappointing.

 

A lot of this article is disappointing. It seems like the larger breweries (and distributors, for that matter) are opposed to this. They state their opposition as being driven by fears of prohibition-style monopolies. Those fears could be eliminated by putting a barrel limit on a brew pub that sells its own beer. Once a brewer surpasses the limit, it can no longer sell. This is still messed up, I know, but it clams that irrational fear.

 

Hah! Nice catch.

This one caught my eye: "Stutrud grew Summit from a storefront on University Avenue in 1989"

Didn't Summit start brewing in 1986?

 

I'm a bit surprised at Alvey's stance on the issue. I would think more popular products on his shelf would be a good thing.

 

Alvey has stated on Facebook that he's in favor of changing the law. Perhaps he was taken a bit out of context, I'm not sure.

 

Summit did open in 1986. Some of Mark's comments were taken out of context. This is a poorly researched article.

 

I think it is closer to a lot out of context.

 

From Summit's Facebook page:

In regards to today's Star Trib article: Mark Stutrud 20 minute interview with the reporter was distilled to a few sentences, so to clarify his position: He is neutral on the bill, but he stressed that the proponents of this bill need to thoroughly address tied house issues and the concerns that the brewpubs (particularly the national chain brewpubs) would have a competitive advantage over the new, smaller wholesale breweries. His concern is not with increased competition to Summit, but how this could affect the newest members of the burgeoning Minnesota beer scene. Also of note, Summit is nowhere near 1% of beer sales in the country, which the online article has since been corrected.​

 

Just more C level journalism from the Strib.

The less laws impeding brewers of any sort, the better.

 

Granite City's bottles are made by Minhas in Monroe, WI. Contract brew type situation.