A Pennsylvania bill that would require beer sold at in-state taprooms that are owned by out-of-state companies to either be brewed onsite or sold through a Pennsylvania wholesaler is one step closer to becoming law.
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed House Bill No. 1615 Tuesday on a vote of 137-61, and now advances to the state Senate.
“Malt or brewed beverages produced for the brewery under a contract brewing agreement or alternating proprietorship with an out-of-state manufacturer may only be distributed” by “specific importing distributors who shall have first been given distributing rights for such products in designated geographical areas through the distribution system required for out-of-state manufacturers,” the bill reads.
The bill contains an exception that allows “a brewery located in a second-class city with retail sales prior to June 1, 2017” to “sell malt or brewed beverages produced under a contract brewing agreement with an in-state or out-of-state manufacturer to nonlicensees for on-premises or off-premises consumption.” This applies specifically to Southern Tier, which opened a taproom in Pittsburgh in early 2017 that it partially supplies with beer from its headquarters in Lakewood, New York, 160 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. Any beer brought into Pennsylvania is done so in partnership with Southern Tier’s Pittsburgh-area distributor, Frank B. Fuhrer Wholesale.
While Artisanal Brewing Ventures-owned Southern Tier is exempt from the proposed policy due to its age, future Pennsylvania outposts of out-of-state breweries would have to brew onsite or purchase their products from licensed Pennsylvania wholesalers as the retail tier in the three-tier system.
Out-of-state breweries with taprooms (or plans for taprooms) in the Keystone State include Colts Neck, New Jersey-based Source Farmhouse Brewery; Brooklyn, New York-headquartered Other Half Brewing; Alexandria, Virginia-based Aslin Beer Company; Beach Haven, New Jersey-based Ship Bottom Brewery; and BrewDog, the U.S. operation of which is based in Columbus, Ohio.
Source Farmhouse opened its taproom in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood in September, the same neighborhood where Other Half plans to open a taproom in the building that housed Anheuser-Busch InBev-owned Goose Island’s former taproom.
Ship Bottom plans to open an offshoot location it’s calling the Beer Blendery & Barrel House in Swarthmore, later this fall. The brewery also operates seasonal beer gardens at Media-based Linvilla Orchards and Ambler-based Wake Coffee. Aslin plans to open its facility in Pittsburgh, where BrewDog operates a bar.
The Pennsylvania Beer Alliance, a trade group representing the state’s beer wholesalers, supports the bill.
“We feel that this policy will strengthen Pennsylvania’s beer laws and create additional opportunity to brew beer in Pennsylvania,” president Jay Wiederhold told Brewbound.
Pennsylvania is home to 444 craft breweries, giving it the 19th most breweries per capita in the country, according to data from the Brewers Association. With 3.1 million barrels of beer produced in 2020, Pennsylvania was the state with the second largest volume nationwide, but is home to D.G. Yuengling & Son’s Pottsville-based brewery and Boston Beer Company’s Breinigsville-based brewery, which are the two largest craft beer producers by volume.