Just wondering how much interest exists in organizing a monthly bottle share in Madison. I'm still fairly new to the city and would love to meet new people in the scene and I know a few people from work who would definitely be interested. I'm not sure about what's allowed here (because the alcohol laws are weird as hell), but I know in Houston we were allowed to have bottle shares at any of the craft beer bars as long as we all bought stuff and kept it civil. Is that legal in Madison, or are these sorts of things restricted to private residences? I know lots of people here have pretty deep cellars so I'm not looking to set something up where we share poopy homebrews or old shelf beers. Any insight is welcomed!
I'm pretty sure there aren't any laws against it, but I can't really see any of the places in Madison allowing that many people BYOB. I've been wanting to do an open invite tasting for a while. Our apartment has one of those club house things you can rent out that would be big enough for a large group. I want to wait until its a little nicer out, but hopefully that isn't too far away.
Unfortunately, what we are talking about is not legal (http://www.dor.state.wi.us/pubs/pb302.pdf, page 5) as far as restauranteurs and corkage fees go. It would be cool to have a bigger bottle share event once in a while in Madison. There are groups here and there of course and it's been a lot of fun. I could imagine a larger bottle share to be a lot of fun. I have never thought about venues or the such, though.
What if a brewery allowed us to use space? I'm assuming that brewpubs adhere to the same laws as restaurants but breweries are under an entirely different set of regulations.
I would be interested. Also the new Hyvee in Fitchburg sold me a 6 pack of Zombie Dust today. I think its gone now, but dear god.
I would definitely be down for any type of bottleshare, big or small. We have too many nice beers to drink them all to ourselves in my house.
Although illegal I've definitely seen outside bottles opened in restaurants, and a more full on (but small) bottle share occur at a brewery tap room in Madison. Breweries allow bottle shares at events often enough (i.e. Central Waters Anniversary Party) that maybe there isn't an equivalent law for breweries and that'd be the way to go. Even if it's legal they're probably not going to let you do it unless you've befriended the Owner/staff and/or you're doing it in a way that benefits them (you buy plenty of their beer as well and are sharing thoroughly with the staff).
Breweries have the advantage of being a tier one business, so that may change how beers that have not been acquired though a distributor may be viewed.
