A bunch of beer and alcohol legislation by states in the headlines these days, well reported elsewhere and with plenty of commentary, so I’m mostly leaving that to others.
But . . .
In Utah, the Senate killed a measure that would have allowed bars (including brewpubs) and restaurants to sell draft beer stronger than 4% alcohol by volume (3.2% by weight). A bill to lift the cap was approved 58-2 in the House. But on Thursday, the last day of the session, the Senate decided not to debate the measure and to go home early instead.
Bars and restaurants are already allowed to serve full-strength beer if they buy it in bottles from the state liquor store at the same 86 percent markup paid by the general public. That means brewpubs can brew stronger beer, bottle it, sell it to the state and then buy it back to serve it. Makes a lot of sense, don’t you think?
I comment here often that despite this law Utah’s breweries make outstanding beers full of flavor. However, our travels in states (Georgia and the Carolinas) where the alcohol cap on beer recently was boosted makes it apparent how that changes the beer culture for the better. Yes, much of the excitement is about “bigger” beers but when people are talking about flavor all beers with flavor benefit.
What’s stopping the brewers from bottling the beer, selling it to the state at $.01 per bottle, buying out the entire stock then selling it in-house at a normal rate?
Just to nitpick, while I was perusing the regulations at http://www.alcbev.state.ut.us/Liquor_Laws/laws_main.html I noticed that the actual minimum markup for heavy beer is 64.5%, or 30% if made by a small brewer (<40k bbl/year) that has applied for a reduced markup.
@Mario: First, it’s a minimum markup not a fixed markup. The Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control can simply turn around and sell it at close to the same price that they would have originally. (Considering their remit, that’s a not unlikely outcome of a brewer attempting to game the system in this way.) Second, the brewer cannot force the department to sell the entire stock back to them, so any purchased by a consumer would be a total loss to the brewer.