Bill to allow on-site sales gets complicated in move to appease distributors
An amendment that Texas craft brewers inserted into their own bill to appease distributors now has bounced back to bite them from the other side of the “aisle” – big brewers.
Anheuser-Busch vice president for state affairs Mark Bordas went before a state Senate committee yesterday to oppose a proposal that would let consumers visiting small breweries to buy up to 144 ounces of beer to take home.
While acknowledging that AB had earlier supported the measure, House Bill 602 AB told senators that a provision limiting participation to breweries that produce less than 75,000 barrels per year unfairly discriminates against his company.
AB has a brewery in Houston.
“We’re not against the smaller guys having the right to do that,” he said, adding that AB would simply like the same option should it decide to offer regular brewery tours.
The 75,000-barrel cap was added as a concession to the politically powerful Wholesale Beer Distributors of Texas, which had successfully rebuffed previous efforts.
How can anyone of sound mind a body buy a product from AB if they are in any way informed of how that company operates…
AB- “We own 3/4 of the entire beer universe, how dare you lowly TX craft brewers try to sell beer out of your own breweries”.
The same goes for the distros, the beer belongs to the brewer and the people, not fat middlemen that have been gorging on AB’s dust for 30 years.
I actually have to side with A-B on this one. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to do what a small brewery can do? Let consumers decide, not arbitrary laws.
I agree, fair is fair, let the free market rain…but using your political/financial muscle to put the boot on small brewers is BS, particularly on a law that’s basically irrelevant to how AB does business. Now if AB wants to lobby against the Wholesale Beer Distros of Texas PAC, and get the barrelage cap lifted, that’s a different, but wait that wont happen because I’ll guarantee there is most likely some dirty business in the background there.
We just got a bill passed in NH to eliminate a one case restriction on visitors to breweries. We specifically included ALL breweries, but the argument then was, that Liquor Control would oppose the bill for our own good, because the restriction kept AB from selling beer from ITS brewery! We told the committee we didn’t mind that at all—they could sell all the beer they wanted. AB sucks and we hate them.