Craft Brewing Business

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Illegal taps of New Glarus beer in Minnesota, according to investigators

Tap handles 101No doubt your beer is fantastic, loyal CBB reader, but are customers breaking the law in order to drink it? Perhaps! At least if you are New Glarus Brewing. Craft drinkers in Minnesota have a hankering, and with New Glarus stuck on the other side of the border (distributed exclusively in Wisconsin), what other recourse is there than to buy a few kegs and sell them from a tap with no license?

From Prairie Business:

Investigators say Maple Tavern manager bought six kegs of Spotted Cow retail in Hudson, then resold the beer at the Minnesota bar. Distributing alcohol that is not permitted for sale in Minnesota is a felony offense.

New Glarus co-owner Deb Carey said this wasn’t the first time businesses from outside of Wisconsin have tried to sell the beer, but she’s not quite sure why anyone would break the law for her product.

“I don’t really have an answer,” Carey said. “I just make the beer. But there are people that travel great distances to get our beer, just like there are people that travel far for some of Minnesota’s great beers.”

Carey said her company’s desire to stay within the boundaries of Wisconsin — “We don’t plan on expanding outside Wisconsin, now or really ever. … We are growing every year, we just don’t want to grow outside of Wisconsin,” she said.

Definitely head on over and check out the rest of this story.

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Comments

  1. Seems like an interesting opportunity to challenge Interstate Commerce Laws, which prevent government from interfering with the sale of goods or services across state borders. Why not seek the help of the Brewers Association to help challenge these laws for once? There’s always been so much controversy over these laws that the interpretation seems to change any time they’ve been seriously challenged. I’m sure the BA could even recruit the help of dozens of other industries that could be benefit from a decision.

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