Sensible and Dumb State Beer Laws

While most beer in PA is still sold by the case or the 12 pack, it can only be as packaged and shipped by the brewery. It is possible to find places that sell six-packs, just not the type of beer store you went to. To sell single or six packs the place has to be an "eatery" which sells both food and beer both for on site consumption and for take-out. With the takeout you are limited to 192 oz per purchase.

The 12 pack bit is fairly new as we're seeing a gradual loosening of the laws. For example 5 years ago there was only one bottleshop/eatery within about 5 miles from here. Now there are 4-5 and more in planning.

Edit: Part of what triggered the change is legislative and part of it is legal procedures. A grocery store chain sucessfully argued that they have established an eatery in part of their store and so should be allowed to purchase a license to sell beer. It got approval and since then several chains with larger stores have successfully added beer sales. There are restrictions in that the Eatery must be able to seat 30 people for food and if in a Supermarket does business involving alcohol is at a separate register from the groceries and must be pruchased at that register. No mixing...

Edit: Like most sets of laws, the PA laws were sensible at they time they were put in place and reflected the concerns, intentions and motivations of the elected legislature that passed them. Like most sets of state laws they change slowly even when conditions may change quite rapidly and because of the inertial inherent in laws once passed.

 

NY: no beer in liquor stores, cooking wine in deceptive bottles in grocery stores.
PA: bland, state-run "package" stores
UT: theocracy

 

Yes, there are variety cases. In fact PA (I think because of the case restriction) seems to get a wider range of variety cases than most states. Almost every local brewery does Variety cases (e.g., Victory, Troegs) and some outsiders do as well. One of my favorite cases ever was from St. Bernardus and the case had six different beers from across their full line up at the time. Similarly my first case from Unibroue was a variety case with 5 of their different beers.

 

New York, the land of excessive taxation and regulation, is actually one of the best for beer. Over the past few years, positive new legislation has been passed, such as the Farm Brewers Law. The flip side to this is that our government is now taking credit for fixing problems that government caused in the first place.

 

Having lived in both PA and UT I'd say you are missing quite a bit in your characterization of each those two states.

 

That's almost a universal truth about any adminstrative structure that differs from an older one or has new folks running it.

 

Where we live the County is dry but the City is wet with the boundary line going down the center of the Boulevard in front of our place. So I live in the County and the convenience store two blocks up on our side cannot sell beer, but one across the street in the City can.

 

Given the opportunity, government will always manage to screw it up.

 

The size of bureaucracy is inversely proportional to its degree of efficiency.

 

As drtth mentioned, things are slowly improving in PA thanks to supermarket chains and gas station chains. PA just passed legislation allowing 6-packs to be sold in gas stations, but there will be ongoing challenges, etc to this new law. Right now it seems there is a lobbying battle in PA. Until recently, beer could only be bought by the case, with the exception of the eatery loophole. So beer was mainly bought through independently owned beer distributors. If I am correct, a lot of the pushback in changing the laws comes from the lobbyists for these independent beer distrubutors, which is understandable. Many are family/locally owned and could be adversely affected by new laws. However, with the changes in beer drinking buying beer by the case no longer makes sense. My local distributor always has a great selection, but there are cases that sit there for a half-year at a time. The dusty cases of Ballast Point Sculpin always stand out, as they sit in the same spot for months. I don't know many people willing to pay $70 for a case of Sculpin (or any other awful variety).

 

Ohio just got rid of the old, dumb, 12%ABV cap on beer. They replaced it with a more sensible labeling requirement, that beers over 12% must state on the label that they are stronger than the average. It's going to make it a little difficult to get high-proof beers brought in from out of state, though, as I believe there is some sort of clash with federal labeling laws, so Ohio might need special labels. Mayhaps a sticker?

 

NJ is pretty good. Liquor stores have beer, liquor, and wine with no alcohol % restrictions. Singles and 6 packs and everything are available. No beer at gas stations but lots of grocery stores have it or at least have a separate section for alcohol.

 

NJ screwed me over big time one night. Trying to find beer for a concert, and we couldn't find it anywhere! We tried gas stations, even a grocery store... nothing. So 4 of us killed a bottle of crappy vodka instead, and that ended up being a horrible, horrible night. I don't like NJ simply because of that day, lol.

Here in NY, laws are pretty good! No sales at liquor stores, but I can go to pretty much any gas station or grocery store. They recently just changed the law to allow alcohol sales on Sundays after 10am. It used to be noon.

 

Washington is pretty good. Can sell from 6am-2am, 365 days a year. Can fill any growler. In fact, any sealable container can be used as a growler. Pretty much any place can get a license to serve beer; in my town you can get a beer at a bookstore, bike shop, and various hair cutting places, alongside the restaurants, breweries and bars. No minimum/maximum oz limits.

 

Well that all sounds lovely.

 

Still, there is no brewery, other than maybe Treehouse or the Alchemist, from which I would buy a case of beer, even if mixed. It's a monumentally stupid law, and always has been.

• The MA law restricting growler fills to the breweries' own logo growlers is also stupid.
• The MA no happy hour law is pretty stupid as well.
• The MA law restricting ownership of any beer/wine/liquor retailer to three (may now be 4) shops is really, really stupid. Great for keeping prices high though, and giving wholesalers all the leverage. If you wonder why grocery stores, including Trader Joes, rarely sell beer and win in MA, this is why.

 

Here is a nice overview of the laws in all the states... and links to more details for many of the states:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_laws_of_the_United_States

One of the weirdest that I know of is that in PA there are restrictions on bringing alcohol into the state from outside the state. There are some allowances but pretty much you need to pay tax to PA if you are bringing it in. I have often wondered about just traveling *through* PA with alcohol since I sometimes buy beer in Maryland and take it home to NY - what would happen if some over-aggressive trooper pulled me over in PA and said that I had illegally brought beer into PA, even though I am only traveling through?

 

Yes! Got caught in this snag once at a Key Foods in Brooklyn before a dinner party I was invited to. The wine did not help me with my impression!