Good news is a round the corner for breweries, distillers and consumers. Wednesday the Utah Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission approved a rule change that would no longer require brewers and distillers to ship their on premises made heavy beer and spirits to the D.A.B.C. warehouse for tags and taxes. This means that patrons can buy strait from the source in stead of having to travel to a state liquor store. The so-called Type 5 package license affects Salt Lake Brewing Co., Utah Brewers Cooperative, Uinta Brewing Co. and High West Distillery, all located in Salt Lake City.
This will really help with quality control. Before breweries would have to ship their products in unrefrigerated trucks to the unrefrigerated DABC warehouse. Now beers will stay cold from bottling to purchase.
Remember this has to do with stuff made on premises. For instance a six packs of Squatters India Ale, may only be purchased at the Salt Lake coop where it is brewed - but not at Squatters Pub Brewery in Salt Lake City, Squatters Airport Pub at the Salt Lake City International Airport or Squatters Roadhouse Grill in Park City. The license allows for heavy beer to be sold in bottles as take-out only where it's brewed although the beverages may be sold on tap in pubs. At this point, Squatter's Pub Brewery in Salt Lake City has no plans to sell take-out heavy beer - unless there's a high demand for it. Still, for those anxious to buy the soon-to-be released Fifth Element, a rustic, wood barrel aged sour beer. I guess we can try and ask our servers for a take-home bottle.... couldn't hurt.
6 comments:
Sounds good. So I could buy a Triple Reve from Red Rock straight up, from the brewpub? How about being able to buy other bottled beers that are below 4%? Interesting.
So, theoretically a brew pub could make only heavy beer, sell it on taps and for take out? So long as they do not attempt to sell it off premises? Is the heavy beer still sold with the high state taxes?
The Brew Pubs and Breweries can only sell bottled heavy bottled beer, and it has to be bottled on site. No heavy draught beer. And I believe it will be taxed at a slightly lower rate due to recently past legislation that reduces the tax on Utah made beer, wine and spirits. See my post "Buy Utah First".
And to answer your question Doug. If Reve is bottled at RedRock then it can be sold there. If, they choose to.
..and they choose not to. To the disappointment of brewer Kevin, Red Rock's owner has said, "We're a brewery, not a liquor store." Which will reduce Kevin's incentive to experiment with bottle conditioned and high alcohol beer styles.
Well if this is true it just shows how 'green' Utah brewers/owners of brewpubs are. The bottom line is that selling a few high quality strong-ABV beers to beer geeks like me can only help the company. If someone did say that they 'are not a liquor store' I guess they forgot we are not talking about liquor but beer. For people like me when a new release comes out I want at least three bottles; one to drink, one to cellar, and one to share with our beer brethren who cannot get Utah beers. Those breweries who sell 'heavy' beers will make more profit and will earn the respect of the growing beer community. Oh, and this is a big deal for brewers who would love to be able to experiment with beer, regardless of ABV. Let's encourage the state to facilitate more responsible practitioners of the craft/art of brewing.
It definatly shows a lack of vision on the part of Redrocks owners/management. It doesn't suck so much for Kevin and his crew. They'll still crank out great stuff. Like Doug said, it's we the loyal patron who will ultimatly feel screwed. Thanks for the good info Andy!
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