Article on changing beer laws in Pennsylvania

Yuengling is "small" only under the revised definition of the Brewers Association. The B.A.'s definition of "under 6m bbl./yr = small" leaves ONLY AB and MC as "Big" breweries in the US. Pabst, the contract brewer, hovers just under that amount - 5.95 million barrels for 2012.

The Feds' Reduced Excise Tax Rate still uses a 2 million barrel a year limit for "small" and, traditionally, within the US brewery industry reaching the "Million Barrel" mark was once seen as a significant milestone in a brewery's history.

 

DIM, thanks for posting that article! It was very well written and summarized the competing business interests very well. It will be interesting to see what comes out of the PA senate.

The PA Senator that is chair of the committee is Senator McIlhinney who has been writing a column in the magazine Philly Beerscene on the topic of liquor law liberalization (with a beer focus). I have been reading his articles but if the Senator has a ‘core belief’ on this topic I personally have been having a difficult time discerning it from his writings.

Their seems to be a ‘philosophy’ that if you permit beer sales in venues like supermarkets that only BMC type beers will be sold; they won’t carry much craft beer. I don’t have a lot of experience in other states but I have family in Texas that I visit regularly (once a year). In Texas they have a wonderful assortment of craft beer (at reasonable prices) in the Supermarkets. If you want to obtain ‘rare’ beers they have a chain of liquor stores called Specs that carries an even broader range of craft beer (at reasonable prices). You can also buy wine and spirits at Specs (one stop shopping for all of you alcoholic beverage needs). It seems to me that if Texas can do things right, why can’t PA? Oh, I forgot about the part of “competing business interests”?

Cheers!

 

Any change would be welcome. The prices for anything not in a case are unreasonable at this time.

 

Sen. McIlhinney doesn't have a clue. I used to read those Beer Scene articles and wonder if he was being paid off by someone or if he was really that much of a dud. I really don't understand his presumption that allowing beer sales in grocery stores will push out craft brewers. I could maybe see that if you're talking about Walmart but most beer sales are currently in Wegmans and Whole Foods, which are high-end grocery stores that don't cater as much to the BMC-type drinkers. If they want to allow wine sales in grocery stores and wine/liquor in beer distributors, it is absolutely imperative that they also open new avenues to buying beer in grocery stores, convenience stores, and gas stations.

 

I'd like to see distributers have the ability to sell six packs.

 

completely agree with this. That will be the only way anything of real quality will be achievable, short of your few giant eagles/wegmans/mom & pop shops. Most grocery/drug stores are mostly gonna have shelf space for the big boys "craft" brews and stuff from the smaller breweries will be none existent. My $0.02

 

I'm not sure where the pessimism about potential selection limitations in grocery stores is coming from. Wegmans carries an amazing variety, and the only Weis location that I've visited (kind of in the middle of nowhere) had stuff like Victory, Troegs, Stone, etc. Are you going to find a four pack of KBS at your local supermarket? Not terribly likely. But then again, I saw case upon case of Hopslam at Wegmans last year...

 

I would expect a Total Wine and Bev to open in the midstate somewhere since the guy that owns the whole chain is from here and has said he would love to open one around Harrisburg somewhere. They generally have an excellent selection, big and small breweries.

 

Gah! Harrisburg already has Wegmans, Al's, and probably some other places with great selections and not wallet-****** prices. C'mon, Lancaster location (IF he's going to open somewhere, of course).

 

Latest "WOTS" is that the House bill will not fly in the Senate. Maybe it's time to split off beer from wine/liquor and let each seek its own water level. The "Big Guys" want it all under one roof, though.

 

Ugh, I hate Deb Beck, whoever she is. It's hilarious how infrequently these hearings involve statistics or even the smallest sliver of evidence beyond the anecdotal. Apparently the other 48 states are full of bumbling drunks since they have such easy access to alcohol.

This is really the crux of why anti-privatization lobbyists are so ridiculous. It's all about the children, blah blah blah, and you can't even bother to run compliance checks on your own stores. That's like saying that mole on your back is fine because it hasn't been diagnosed as melanoma, except you haven't even even been examined by a doctor. I guess anything can be true if you refuse to see why it's false.