Georgia Beer LawsUPDATE 01/26/16: An anonymous source has confirmed that, due to pressure from Gov. Deal’s office, Rep. Stephens dropped his sponsorship of the proposed beer bill.  With no sponsor there is no bill.  The below agreement was reached in light of the option that nothing else was going to happen this year.

An article just published by the AJC (possible paywall) reports that a deal has been reached between the Georgia craft beer and liquor industries and the Georgia Beer Wholesalers Association that will remove the Guild’s proposed craft beer bill from consideration in this year’s session.  The preliminary details of the deal are below, the Guild has said they will publish an official release on what all this means very soon.

Per AJC, here are the details of the agreement:

  • Brewers will be allowed to sell tours again at variable prices based on the kind of beer offered
  • Special events will be allowed at breweries and distilleries
  • Brewers, distillers, and wholesalers will be allowed to use social media to alert the public about where to buy their product or to advertise special events
  • Allow third parties to sell tour tickets
  • Allow breweries and distilleries to sell food on site.

In our early post we detailed the items proposed in the draft bill, this compromise unfortunately saw very few of those items realized.  Georgia’s brewpubs still got nothing out of this.  Speaking personally, my gut reaction to this is that it sucks.  Basically brewers and distillers are getting back what they already fought and won in last year’s session with SB63 – with a couple of bones thrown in.  This still does not allow any direct sales at breweries*, which is pretty shitty.  However, the on-site food sales could be good, depending on the interpretation of what that means.  The social media mentions are nice, but I think it’s ridiculous that it was illegal to begin with.  These small changes will be beneficial, but it’s such a small crumb tossed to the hounds compared to what should be done.  Thanks for the scraps, please enjoy your cake, try not to choke on it.

However… I know when it comes to alcohol-related laws the battles can be nasty, and unfortunately the opposition has a lot more money and power, and they put it to good use.  Not mention there was a resolution to end this year’s session early and a battle would have likely tabled the bill with no results at all.  Although I think this sucks and is not really a win for Georgia’s brewers I’m totally confident that the Georgia Craft Brewers Guild did what they thought was in the best interest of the brewers given the situation they were in.  I very much appreciate the efforts of the Guild.  I guess there’s always next year.

This is breaking news and more details are likely to come soon.  We’ll update as soon as we receive more info.

*Georgia is one of only two states in the country that does not allow direct sales at breweries at all, the other is Mississippi.  Alabama allows limited sales on-site but does not allow any to-go sales.  Either way you look at this we are in the bottom two or three in the country as far as this goes.  Both Alabama and Mississippi have proposed bills this year to allow direct sales from breweries, I hope our neighbors have better luck than we did.

Georgia Beer Laws

https://beerguysradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Beer-Legislation-Update-Image-PNG.pnghttps://beerguysradio.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Beer-Legislation-Update-Image-PNG-150x150.pngTim DennisLegislationNewsSB63beer laws,direct sales,Georgia Beer Bill,SB63UPDATE 01/26/16: An anonymous source has confirmed that, due to pressure from Gov. Deal's office, Rep. Stephens dropped his sponsorship of the proposed beer bill.  With no sponsor there is no bill.  The below agreement was reached in light of the option that nothing else was going to happen...Cold beer, hot conversations, stupid jokes.