Nugget Nectar

freshest by : 052816

 

Guess I need to go grab a couple bottles then.

 

well worth it

 

i agree, not any different from the bells shipment out here a few months ago. MOC probably just got a special order of troegs. At the same time I know if the guys at MOC on 29th see anything special on the list they ordered. I am interested now on how the get it tho.

 

Bell's sent their beer to an Oregon distributor. Dozens of bars/stores received Bell's. This sounds like, for lack of a better term, black market sales.

 

Exactly. They use "festival license" to basically sign a temporary distribution agreement, which is what all the other "out of market" breweries do for events like OBF, PIB, and CBC last year. It's possible that one of the distributors down in the valley that doesn't distribute to Portland has an agreement with Troeg's and MoC then shifts product between stores to get it up here, but that's the only legal situation I can think of.

That said, if there is someone down south selling them, you'd expect Bier Stein and other shops to carry them as well. Also, MoC seems to be the only ones who wind up with brewery-only HoTD beers like Otto on their shelves, so who knows what's going on.

 

Or $130 growlers of AftW.

 

Well, one thing is the transportation issues. Moving alcohol across state lines without the proper permits and licenses is illegal. Then what about taxes to the state? Are they paying the listing fee to the LCB? Plenty of questions to go around.

 

Yeah, I've read that too. Once it's there, it's legal, but how did it get there? I don't know if it's still true, but back in my OTR days PA had a law that any truck transporting alcohol through the state had to have a special sticker from the state. It's very difficult to get anywhere in the Northeast without going through PA. The company I drove for had about 300 trucks, and about 1/3 of them had the sticker, including my truck. So I hauled plenty of Bud from Baldwinsville NY to the docks of New Jersey.

 

I believe DC is a special case, as their ABC regulations have a specific provision/loophole for this type of activity: https://www.washingtonpost.com/life...762f0e-2019-11e5-84d5-eb37ee8eaa61_story.html To my knowledge, no similar provision exists in Oregon's regulations that would cover MofC's activity if they are bypassing a distributor.

@John_M, your story of Concordia and Hophead is interesting since Bend Brewing still regularly self-distributes. Perhaps there are geographical restrictions, though, as every instance I've heard where a bottleshop/bar goes to pick up beer at the source, they pay retail. I would have thought the brewery would be willing to sell to those establishments at wholesale, effectively "distributing" it to their own dock and saving the gas of driving it over themselves.

 

Here's my understanding of the laws. There may be loopholes and exemptions I'm not aware of, but after doing this for 10 years I probably would have heard of them by now.

• If the brewery is in-state and self distributed you can buy whatever you want from them.
• If the brewery is in-state and has a distributor you have to buy from the distributor, except in rare circumstances. For example, if you're hosting an event and the brewery can't get the keg to the distributor in time they will occasionally bring it straight to you.
• If the brewery is located out of state it is 100% illegal to buy beer directly from them. It must be sent to an Oregon-based distributor who then sells it to bars and retailers.

Note that cider and wine are treated differently in that you can buy directly from out of state producers, but you have to track the volume you sell, file a monthly OLCC report, and pay taxes on it.

There was a period several years ago when Bend Brewing was actually distributed by Columbia here in town.

 

Bend Brewing does still distribute through Columbia, but Oregon breweries have the ability to self-distribute too (I'm guessing BBC's contract with Columbia spells out the self-distribution scenarios and limitations).