In the state of Texas, breweries can self-distribute to bars/retailers until their production exceeds 75K bbls. However, brewers (not brew pubs) are prohibited from selling directly to consumers. So for example, people can not purchase beer from the brewery, unlike a winery where bottles can be sold. To date, efforts to change this through the state legislature have failed. Are there other states that have this same restriction besides Texas??
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Prohibition of Brewery Sales to Consumers
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In GA, we are not allowed to self distribute. We are not allowed to sell directly to consumers. We are only allowed to sell to our licensed distributors. No exceptions. We are not allowed to give beer away to anyone consuming it away from our place of manufacture. In fact, we are specifically prohibited from donating beer to charities.
The only exception we have is that we are allowed to give 32 oz per person, per day, to people who take a free tour of the brewery. We are not allowed to charge for the tour as that would be seen as charging for the beer.
What we do is sell an optional pint glass on the tour. Obviusly it is not mandatory to purchase it for samples but most visitors understand and try to help us out. And if they don't want to purchase a pint glass, we have very, very small sample cups available.
In GA wineries can self distribute up to a certain limit if no distributor will take their beer. They can sell wine on their tours. In fact they can sell on Sunday, which package and grocery stores are prohibited from doing in GA. And to top it off a new law was passed last year that allows wineries in GA to sell beer and liquor if it is purchased form a licensed distributor. So now a winery in GA can sell our beer, which is something we are not even allowed to do. No one ever claimed the laws made any sense.
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