• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Advertise
  • About Craft Brewing Business

Craft Brewing Business

Professional Insight, Unfiltered

  • News
  • Business & Marketing
  • Ingredients & Supplies
  • Packaging & Distribution
  • Equipment
  • Webinars & White Papers
  • COVID-19

Pennsylvania beer laws change for the better, but one provision could hurt small distributors

November 21, 2016Keith Gribbins

Summer Love Victory Brewing Case Pack Summer
The good news: The new law will allow distributors to finally sell six-packs along with cases.

Pennsylvania has a strong beer culture but some backward beer laws (hey, who’s perfect?). The Keystone State is an alcoholic beverage control state. Wine and spirits are only allowed to be sold in state-owned “Fine Wine and Good Spirits” stores, and beer may only be purchased from a restaurant, bar, licensed beer store or distributor. For decades now, questionable hurdles for both distributors and retailers in Pennsylvania have included: where alcohol is sold, when it can be sold and in what type of quantity and packaging it can be sold in.

So, it’s been exciting for folks to watch Governor Tom Wolf over the last two years work hard with Republicans and Democrats in the General Assembly to modernize the sale of liquor, wine and beer in Pennsylvania in order to bring the commonwealth’s booze system into the 21st century. On Nov. 15, Wolf continued his liquor reform in Pennsylvania by signing HB 1196, which allows beer distributors to sell six-packs (and other provisions) and thus should help continue improving the lives of everyone involved, right?

Well, a few parties feel like they’re getting fucked. Apparently, a provision in the bill could impact some small beer distributors who are in certain, unfortunate geographical locations — and some of those in a million-dollar way. The bill changes a Prohibition-era law that dealt with where and how brewers can sell beer in the sobering state of PA — especially if you live near wholesaler boundaries.

From an excellent article on the Allentown Morning Call:

Since the 1930s, brewers — from MillerCoors to Yuengling to Victory Brewing — can enter into private contracts with large wholesale beer distributors. The contracts give wholesalers exclusive territorial rights to where brewers’ brands can be sold geographically to small licensed retail distributors, six-pack stores, bars and restaurants. State law says the contracts are in perpetuity.

Territories can cover one county, multiple counties or the entire state. Small retail distributors are required to buy products from wholesalers in their region, but there is no provision against their reselling a wholesaler’s product in another wholesaler’s territory.

The law changes that. All businesses in the beer-selling food chain now are subject to the private territorial agreements between large wholesalers and brewers. So retail distributors are prohibited from buying from one wholesaler and selling to a bar or restaurant in another wholesaler’s territory. Those who violate the law would be subject to a 30-day closure.

So beer distributors in areas that straddle wholesale boundaries could lose business by being legislatively precluded from making deliveries to long-standing customers.

Watch this video. Casey Kopko and his family run Cascario’s Beverage in Pen Argyl, Pa., and Kopko says this provision could cost his company a million bucks. Wow and yikes. But let’s not lose sight: HB1196 also does a lot of good things. It includes improvements such as retail licenses that allow selling on Sundays at 9:00 a.m. instead of 11:00 a.m. It also allows beer and liquor to be sold before, during and after athletic events and consumed outside the club seating and restaurant areas (jeesh, that was illegal?). The law will go into effect in less than 60 days.

government lawsuit
Pennsylvania wholesaler sues MillerCoors over craft beer sales
organic farm
USDA wants to step up enforcement of organic ag program
Michigan State Capitol
Michigan close to increasing self-distribution limit for craft breweries in state
Check out this TTB educational video series covering alcohol trade regulations

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Takehiko Nakahara says

    November 22, 2016 at 8:06 pm

    Takehiko Nakahara liked this on Facebook.

    Log in to Reply
  2. crsimp01 says

    November 21, 2016 at 2:43 pm

    Pennsylvania beer laws change for the better, but one provision will hurt small distributors https://t.co/AHofyuynch

    Log in to Reply
  3. carlu_fra says

    November 21, 2016 at 2:35 pm

    Pennsylvania beer laws change for the better, but one provision could hurt small distributors https://t.co/GTDaoMUrvn #beer #craftbeer

    Log in to Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

Latest News

  • Portland Cider Co. donates $12,500 to Hunger-Free Schools
  • Penguin City Beer adds a tenant (first black, female-owned ciderhouse in Ohio)
  • Craft Beer Consumer Habits in February 2021: Are on-site attitudes changing?
  • Watch: Magliner’s Powered Lifting Hand Truck makes moving kegs quick and effortless

Sign up for our newsletter

unsubscribe from list

Most Popular Today

Recent Features

  • craft beer consumer tastesCraft Beer Consumer Habits in February 2021: Are on-site attitudes changing?
    February 24, 2021
  • No and low alcohol beer grew 30+ percent last year, now enjoy some big haps in the NA beer sector
    February 23, 2021
  • How to Seduce a Distributor: The importance of branding, common misconceptions and automatic disqualifiers
    February 22, 2021
  • I would totally sit in a hot tub of hops and drink chill pints at this new beer spa in Denver
    February 18, 2021
  • truly hard seltzer‘Truly’ crushing it: Boston Beer nets over $1.7 billion in 2020 revenue
    February 18, 2021
  • Wholesaler Updates: Stone Distribution expands into former AB Inbev warehouse (news on Urban South, Wild Leap, Hairless Dog and lots more)
    February 17, 2021

Footer

  • Email Newsletter Sign Up
  • About Craft Brewing Business
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise on Craft Brewing Business
  • Media Kit Download
  • Privacy and Terms

© 2021 · CBB Media LLC

Continue ...

sponsored by