Sensible and Dumb State Beer Laws

Indiana:

No carry out alcohol sales on Sunday unless it is brewed on site.

No cold beer, or wine can be sold at grocery stores, no cold soda can be sold at liquor stores.

Edit: Growlers can only be filled with beer brewed on site.

Double edit: I see fredmugs beat me to much of this.

 

Who would pay off multiple legislators to not allow liquor sales on Sunday? Seems like a loss for anyone interested in selling alcohol.

 

I've heard that of Oklahoma as well, but my source was only there once, many years ago, so it may no longer be the case.

 

Yes.

 

I think that is more down to noisy "moral majority" types than anything else.

 

Colorado:
Growler fills ONLY at the brewery, no growler fill stations.
Supermarkets can only carry 3.2 beer, no full strength beer, wine, or liquor
A corporation or individual may own ONLY 1 liquor license- no chain stores
No take-out at bars or eateries

 

I miss Arizona's fairly lax beer laws....I used to get growler fills from a gas station/car wash in Glibert.

 

As @beertunes has already stated, Washington has it pretty good. All I can think of in terms of inconvenience is once being denied purchase of a crappy 12pk by a convenience store that observed bar time when heading to an after hours party.

Over in Montana, it's a different story. There's a set number of liquor licenses, making them usually unavailable, and insanely expensive when they are. Breweries can only sell a fixed number of ounces for on-site drinking, and it's a fairly small amount, maybe enough for two beers, IIRC.

 

This is pretty surprising to me. I thought that an increasingly liberal state like CO would have "easy" beer laws (like their pot laws for example)

 

Colorado is all over the place. Legalized pot shares a state with Dobson and Focus On The Family.

 

Yeah, that would be my guess too.

 

Always wondered why that Whole Foods there near the Delaware border could sell beer but anywhere else was all case sales.

I have "fond" memories of putting together permit books at Swift.....and yes, there's still to my knowledge, a requirement to have a permit to traverse PA with alcohol, regardless of where it was picked up or delivered.

There's a golf course on the border of like Calabash and South Carolina, Farmstead I think, where the back 9 is in SC. We'd tee off around 8:00 and sure enough, beer girl would be around on 9 by the time we go there. Now that I think about it, we probably should have asked to go off on the back 9 to begin with....

I can't complain too loudly about VA laws. Beer flows most anywhere that there's a register, and the selection has gradually amped up to the point where you can even find local flavors as well as Stone, Bells' and La-goo-nee-tahs in even most Food Lions. FOOD LION for God's sake!

Most infuriating law I ever came face to face with was in Ottawa County in Michigan where one could happily buy (in a restaurant) a mixed drink on Sundays, but no beer. Makes NO sense at all. That was about 15 years ago though, I'd hope that they would have changed that by now, given the craft explosion that took place over that time.

 

Getting more an more places that can fit the law. Down along 202 there's both a Whole Foods and a Wegmans fairly near Delaware border.

 

Washington and Oregon gotta be good bets to be near the top of that list.

 

When we go to Aston, that place is on my radar. This year we'll be over around Plymouth Meeting, so that Whole Foods will have to do. Problem is that we also have a Pittsburgh tournament this year over by like Moon Township - I've never found anything other than case sales places over there. But they have Primanti Brothers and Burgatory, so I'll take my wins where I can get them.

 

Most of the outdated laws are post-prohibition relics. And don't assume that one particular party was responsible for it:

Also by not allowing grocery stores to carry full strength beer, we have a better selection at our numerous bottle shops around town. Corporate grocery stores aren't the best place for fresh, limited quantity craft beer.

 

All I have to say is Pennsylvania. Everyone understands.

 

Except for the ultra rare/limited stuff, that's just not true around here. Our grocery stores generally carry everything the bottle shops do, except for things from very small breweries (it's just not worth the headaches of jumping through the hoops) and the rare/limited/walez type stuff. I grab my yearly Abyss/Black Butte Anniversary/Parabola/Sucaba type stuff at the grocery store.

 

I played in a Softball Tournament in Charleston, SC about 15 years ago, and all you could get in the bars were the mini-bottles. I moved here in 2009, and that law had been changed

 

A buddy of mine who serves in the ANG told me that all beer served on-tap at restaurants in Utah have to be under 5% abv. Can anyone confirm or deny this? If so, Uinta must be pissed.

EDIT: did a bit of googling...apparently (sources I read are a bit old so it may have changed) the limit is 3.2% abw which works out to be approx. 4.0% abv. if that is the case, then its pure stupidity. I also find these two top search results hilariously defensive:

http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/the-32-myth/Content?oid=2157643

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/335007968/Weakness-of-Utah-beer-greatly-exaggerated.html?pg=all

outdated articles/opinions but they have the audacity to imply that it's a totally fine law because BMC brews are around 4% abv. i also lol'd at the 'well guinness is >4% abv, so who cares?' argument. poor poor utah folk.

EDIT EDIT: okay apparently you can get higher abv beers at restaurants that have a liquor license because they are considered a liquor.

https://www.thrillist.com/drink/nat...zion-curtains-no-happy-hours-thrillist-nation

(apologies in advance for link to thrillist but they had good info in one place)