I Fought The Beer Law, And the Law Won

I Fought The Beer Law, And the Law Won

There is a lot of places where the law is the law is the law. Not everyone likes the law, but you sort of have to follow it. Well, in some places, following the law is a tricky thing.



I live in Pennsylvania. To buy beer by the case, you must go to a distributor. A distributor can also ONLY sell cases. To buy quantities less than a case, you must go to a bottle shop, or a pizza/sandwich shop. Also, our beer is not sold in most grocery stores not named Whole Foods or Wegman's. We also cannot buy liquor and beer in the same place. At least the beer distributors and liquor stores are now allowed to open on Sundays now.


Virginia is an ABC state, so we have special state run liquor stores which are the only place to buy liquor. That said beer and wine can pretty much be sold anywhere and in whatever quantity so I'll take that. We just recently passed a law allowing breweries to sell full pints out of their tasting rooms instead of just samples, so all in all we are moving in the right direction.


Mississippi just recently (July 1), change the law that limited ABV in beer to 10.2%.
Previously is was at 6%.

Much better, but still lower than it should be.

fff

Texas is so screwed up that I can't possibly remember them all, but:

(1) No one ships to TX, at least not legally
(2) Stores that sell beer and liquor have to close by 9pm, and stay closed all day Sunday. Grocery stores, etc., that don't sell liquor can't sell beer on Sundays until after 12.
(3) Companies that want to distribute their beer here from out of state have to purchase an expensive license to do so, which therefore means a LOT of companies don't distribute their beer here!
(4) Labeling is a huge pain in the ass for local brewers - TABC has to approve all labels, the process is extremely slow, and I know it used to be more stringent than it is now in terms of what exactly could be written on bottles.
(5) Breweries can't sell their own beer on-site: 3-tier system. So you can go to a brewery and sample their beer, but if you want to buy some, you have to then go to a store and buy it.

There's a lot more, but I'm starting to get angry just typing these.....