Full Strength Beer Proposal Withdrawn

Now if they can just pass that bill where my dad can buy me beers in the bar before I turn 21...then I can drink these whales you silly guys keep talking about.

 

Liquor stores have way too much invested in the current system, so I see no way that the laws will change.

 

At least there was a proposal written. I am getting no traction at all here in Utah

Cheers to homebrewing

 

I don’t really have a dog in this, but I’d suspect that a lot of liquor stores actually exist only because of the law the way it currently is. For a good chunk of the population that isn’t really a connoisseur of beer/wine/spirits/etc. – they aren’t going to bother going to that mom & pop liquor store a few miles away when they can get their standard stuff at King Soopers or Target. Many stores were intentionally built with this law in mind.
While a little different, in Alabama we had beer & wine at grocery and convenience stores and liquor in state ABC stores. Because normal stores couldn’t match the volume or pricing for either of those outlets, they full-on didn’t exist in most areas.
I know the two co-exist and thrive in some places , but I’m willing to put up with a 2-minute drive to ensure places like Chambers or Mile High can prosper as a small specialty store literally when surrounded by grocery stores.
I'm definitely no expert and I might even be full-on wrong (wouldn't be the first time)...but that's what it seems like on the surface.

 

I read something yesterday about Kevin Delange from Dry Dock saying that he had to increase his insurance to get into the one King Soopers that sells alcohol...and that it took him 4 months to get into the store due to all the red tape. With corporate being out-of-state and probably really not giving a crap about local breweries, I can totally understand the issue that local breweries have with full-strength in grocery/convenience stores.

Also, would the grocery stores build "bomb shelters"...because I love those things. Doubtful.

 

California sells full strength in groceries and they still have plenty of cool bottle shops.

 

We need a law that allows bottle shops to serve beer on-premises.

 

My in-laws are close to opening a liquor store in Indianapolis, IN. What's interesting is that they sell beer/wine/liquor in grocery stores there (but no one is allowed to sell alcohol on Sundays - which is interesting). What they found is that in order to be successful as a liquor store you have to create a niche selection to attract away people that will buy their alcohol in grocery stores while they're already there getting food. As a result there are a lot less liquor stores than there are here in Colorado and a lot less that carry only macro stuff (whereas here those type of liquor stores are everywhere it seems).

I see the benefit in not allowing grocery stores to sell full-strength beer but it's a bit of a catch 22 for us beer nerds because it allows the liquor stores to be a bit complacent with their selection. If grocery stores sold full-strength beer the liquor stores would have to branch out and carry a more varied selection. At least that's how I see it.

 

guys - as far as i can tell - the crux of the argument is this -

in colorado, you can only own one liquor store. big stores like lukas, davidsons, argonaut are not allowed to franchise. if we all of a sudden put liquor and high abv beer and wine in every grocery store in the state, they have a huge upper hand in the marketplace. this is why currently one store of each franchise (kings, safeway, target, etc) is allowed to sell the good stuff. it keeps them even w/ the little guys who by law are not allowed to have more than 1 store.

if we want high abv product in grocery stores we first have to lift the limit of 1 store per license holder.

 

Love that model. I always go to Malt and Vine in Redmond when I'm in the Seattle area. Love to have a sample while I'm shopping and it's nice to be able to get a growler if they have something cool on tap.

I think that model would THRIVE in Denver.

 

Bottlecraft in San Diego does this, it's rad.

 

I've been to grocery stores in CA that had a wider selection than 99% of CO liquor stores. Also most liquor stores in CO don't take too much care with their product or customers anyway. I'd take California's model over ours any day.

 

I've looked at this a million different ways and have ultimately wound up being agnostic to what happens. What's pretty clear is that the craft market is too strong and growing too fast to be destroyed (and probably even deterred) by this law change, and liquor stores that are stellar at servicing their customers and knowing their product aren't often going to be casualties of a law change either, for all of the reasons mentioned throughout the thread. The losers of this kind of change, outside of a few outliers, are most likely to be liquor stores who are living a bit carelessly now and can't reorient their selection and service to accommodate a more sophisticated market.

 

I think the problem is the fact that an entire industry sprung up near grocery stores because of this law. The bigger guys would survive, but all of those hundreds of others likely wouldn't. The places where grocery/convenience stores coexist (Chicago came to mind) never had laws like this in place.
Not even really about craft beer, but think of all of those literally hundreds of stores around the area that would likely close and eliminate their staff at the same time. I'm pretty certain King Soopers, Safeway, Target, etc. aren't going to hire enough new staff to even make a tiny dent in that.
It isn't the idea that's bad, but more the havok changing from a system that works now and employs lots of people would have.

 

If I was a new brewery I would not want to be making business trips to Bentonville, Pleasanton, Cincinatti or Minneapolis.

BMC, SN, Lefthand, NB, OB, Odell for daaaaaayyyyysss.