Forbes: Pushback Against Tasting Rooms

I was at a recent Philly Beer Week event and had a long conversation with the owner of a local (to me) beer retailer (he owns a Retail Beer Distributor). During the conversation he mentioned that other the past 1-2 years his sales of beer went down due to the recent openings of nearby small, local breweries. He mentioned the names of 4 of these breweries and even provided a number for his decrease in sales (x number of cases per week).

Yup, these brewery tasting rooms by selling both on premise draft and packaged beer to take home (i.e., growlers, crowlers, 4-packs of canned beers,…) are indeed impacting heritage beer businesses. A changing beer scene.

I can understand why existing businesses would lobby for the sorts of legislation as detailed above.

Cheers!

 

This is nuts. There is no argument for these laws other than we don't want to compete with them. I hate laws that protect vested industries. No one should be forced to use a distributor. DC is a mecca of beer because there is no requirement to use distributors.

Get rid of regulations protecting existing businesses and let the market decide...

I'm not even sure what this is about primary goal to sell other people's beers. Has anyone ever been to a tasting room where they are selling another brewery's beers?

 

The Texas bill is something of a conundrum to me. The only "Craft Brewery" in TX that sells more than 255k bbl/yr is Spoetzl (Shiner). The next 2 biggest are between 55 and 60k bbl/yr (St. Arnold and Real Ale), so they have a ways to go.

In Michigan a brewery can have tasting rooms and be big, I.e. Bell's and Founders which are > 300 k bbl/ yr.

 

Interesting. Regardless I'd like to see the 3-tier system eliminated. At least as law. If a distributor provides a service and a brewery chooses to use them then they should, but they shouldn't be mandated to do so.

 

I have been to a number of breweries or brewpubs that sell other breweries' beers: Rowley Farmhouse in Santa Fe, Pizza Boy outside of Harrisburg, Gun Hill and Threes in NYC, off the top of my head.

 

While we are restricting what people can produce and then sell, we should apply such a rule to bakeries, pizzerias, hamburger shops, computer stores (see: Apple), car dealerships (wait, they ARE restricted, sorry Tesla!), ice cream shops, coffee roasteries and hell, even restaurants.

 

I dunno, it seems pretty straightforward to me. A special carve out has been granted to breweries of a certain size to bypass the legally mandated distributor tier and sell directly to the customers. Other businesses aren't as tied to that level.

I do wonder why selling other brewers' beers is a concern, though. I'm assuming that those kegs have already passed through a distributor- so what's the difference in who sells the pints at that point?

 

Oh its quite clear WHY they want to fight it. But is there any reason we as a the voting public should want the 3 tier system to exist? Instead of restricting the tap rooms, lets get rid of the 3 tier system!

 

Amen, brother.

 

That's hard for me to swallow. If they provide such a valuable service, they wouldn't have to use a law to FORCE people to use them. If they are valuable people will choose to use them.

 

If three tier is the best system to distro beer let's de-regulate them and let the marketplace prove it.

 

Exactly!

If they are so valuable they can prove it in the market, it doesn't have to be forced on us.

 

Amen. Couldn't be simpler than this. Sure distributors work hard and help to market and move your product. I have met a lot of really nice, talented people in this area who provide a great service. However, your goal as a brewery, as any other manufacturer, is to sell your product. If you think you can do that on your own, all the power to you.

These laws are asinine nonsense. I'm glad my state continues to go the other way with regulations.

 

Yeah, that's called The Great Big Lie, standard operating bullshit that is spewed every time any sort of reform is proposed. The real truth is that well over 90% of salesmen, I bet, have little to no clue what they represent. They only exist to process orders.

All of which is besides the point, though. It's a common courtesy among producers not to undercut their wholesalers. And I'd be surprised if many were actually doing it.

 

These rules are completely ridiculous and the distributors act like cartels! It's a changing world, and by their logic, we should've had laws to keep the steam locomotive, telegraph, and typewriter businesses protected.

 

Reforming franchise laws would solve so many issues. The end result would be even more distributors, each with a different size and specialty. Naturally, the ones who benefit from the current system and have no concept of what true accountability is like, will fight tooth and claw to prevent it from happening.

 

When those were on the cutting block, I promise you the industry groups behind them tried to stem innovation as long as possible. I just read an article in Reason about how we could have had Cell Phones 40 YEARS before we did. The technology was there in the 40's. The industries with vested interest. TV Broadcast and Landline phone made sure the spectrum wasn't available.

We need to fight the distributors. Write our state representatives and congressmen.