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Beer-to-go unanimously passed in the Texas Senate


ztejas

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https://www.chron.com/life/article/Beer-to-Go-unanimously-passed-in-the-Senate-13878939.php

Beer-to-go is on the cusp of becoming law. The Texas Senate unanimously passed the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission Sunset Bill Wednesday night, just hours before the time ran out to ratify new legislation.

Brewers are confident the legislation will skate through the governor's office, meaning that beginning Sept. 1, Texans will be able to purchase growlers, crowlers and cans at their neighborhood breweries, to consume at home

"Oh man, I feel so much better this morning than I did yesterday morning," John Holler, who owns Holler Brewing along with his wife Kathryn, said early Thursday morning.

"Now it looks kind of silly, but I have to admit I was getting a little doubt creeping in," said Holler, a board member of the Craft Brewers Guild, and a key part of the push to help Texas become the nation's 50th state to allow beer-to-go sales. "We had all the assurances it would happen, but you just never know, and it was really coming down to the wire there."

Why were we the last state to allow such a thing? Disappointing. 

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I'm assuming this is making it legal statewide. Fredericksburg has different laws than most places in Texas on this issue.

Never mind, read more of the article. FBC must be technically a brewpub and not a brewery.

 

Edited by Huckleberry
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I saw an article about this earlier and was confused because we have had growler exchange places here in SA. I guess it was just a city by city deal and this is just making it a full state-wide deal now

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There are two licenses in Texas that allow you to produce beer, a Brewer's license and a Brewpub license. Breweries cannot sell beer to go until this bill is signed. Brewpubs can sell their beer to go, but are capped on how much they can produce, are regulated like a bar, and are located in tier 3 (retail) of the 3 tier system. Places already selling beer to go have brewpub licenses.

Many breweries cannot become brewpubs easily for several reasons, including local/city restrictions and the financial burden of switching licenses. This law is restrictive, as it only allows for a brewery guest to purchase 1 case of beer max per day, but that's enough to allow on-site growler, crowler, and six pack purchases. 

 

The law will go into effect 9/1.

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59 minutes ago, ztejas said:

Why were we the last state to allow such a thing? Disappointing. 

Because the TABC is an impossibly corrupt institution beholden to state-sanctioned "industry" of distributors and their lobbying/donations?

Can we move on to being able to purchase hard liquor on Sundays? Or later than 9pm? Our blue laws are so fucking ridiculous.

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Just now, irishtexan said:

Because the TABC is an impossibly corrupt institution beholden to state-sanctioned "industry" of distributors and their lobbying/donations?

Can we move on to being able to purchase hard liquor on Sundays? Or later than 9pm? Our blue laws are so fucking ridiculous.

We'll get to buy beer at 10am on Sundays now, so that's something I guess.

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Why were we the last state?   Big Beer contributes a lot of money  and perks to key politicians from both parties  in Austin along with  your local county and city governments and has so for decades.   The local distributors  are often owned and operated a local businessman and with that, are seen as some of the most powerful men in their distributorship areas.  And they throw money around to make themselves look like good corporate citizens via sponsorships or community events, charitable dinners, etc..      You want  a big check for cause?  Skip the bank, oilfield company and their charitable funds.   You find the local beer distributor and kiss his ring first. 

But it appears that even the politicians in Austin have finally seen the light and successfully challenged  Big Beer's grip   They see all these Craft Breweries, vineyards, and distilleries  popping up in their districts and  the spinoff economic activity as a result.  So credit to them for going up against Big Beer and getting this done.  Big beer must have seen the light  as well if they willingly came to the table with a compromise because it went nowhere last time it was tried.  

Edited by Nueces River Rat
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Just now, boknowstecmo said:

We'll get to buy beer at 10am on Sundays now, so that's something I guess.

No shit? That's actually pretty great. I can't count the number of times I've gone to the store on Sunday at 10am to buy shit for a bbq only to be bamboozled by the noon beer law. 

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9 minutes ago, irishtexan said:

I can't count the number of times I've gone to the store on Sunday at 10am to buy shit for a bbq only to be bamboozled by the noon beer law. 

10 am isn't that bad because you've at least got time to go home and unpack, prep cook, relax for a bit before making the beer run.

The worst (which I'm really good at doing) is finishing grocery shopping at 11:15 or 11:30 so you're in this weird gray area where you don't want to have to go back out an hour later but also don't want to just waste half an hour. 

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Wh

41 minutes ago, justinjc7 said:

because we have had growler exchange places here in SA.

I assume you are talking about big hops or Freetail?  The key is that big hops is simply filling growlers that were bought through a distributor. 

Edited by midtown
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Oklahoma finally beat Texas on something alcohol related. Our alcohol modernization has been awesome over the last several years. I can even take my kids to my neighborhood brewery now. I'm sure the parade of horribles that held this back for decades will start any moment now.

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1 hour ago, Nueces River Rat said:

So credit to them for going up against Big Beer and getting this done.  Big beer must have seen the light  as well if they willingly came to the table with a compromise because it went nowhere last time it was tried.  

I think they realize the amount of craft beer sold on site will be incredibly miniscule compared to the amount that still goes through distributors.  As long as you can't buy a truck full of Bud light straight from the source, they'll be fine. 

(Or it's that bullshit from last session where the ditributors still get their cut  for beer sold on site even though they never touch the beer?) 

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2 hours ago, 'stache said:

Oklahoma finally beat Texas on something alcohol related. Our alcohol modernization has been awesome over the last several years. I can even take my kids to my neighborhood brewery now. I'm sure the parade of horribles that held this back for decades will start any moment now.

You can expect a lot more lemon parties in Texas. Thats a given.

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5 hours ago, ztejas said:

10 am isn't that bad because you've at least got time to go home and unpack, prep cook, relax for a bit before making the beer run.

The worst (which I'm really good at doing) is finishing grocery shopping at 11:15 or 11:30 so you're in this weird gray area where you don't want to have to go back out an hour later but also don't want to just waste half an hour. 

Try working nights and getting off at about 6:20 AM. So I gotta wander around Walmart until 7 just so I can have a beer or two before I go to bed?

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9 hours ago, Nueces River Rat said:

Why were we the last state?   Big Beer contributes a lot of money  and perks to key politicians from both parties  in Austin along with  your local county and city governments and has so for decades.   The local distributors  are often owned and operated a local businessman and with that, are seen as some of the most powerful men in their distributorship areas.  And they throw money around to make themselves look like good corporate citizens via sponsorships or community events, charitable dinners, etc..      You want  a big check for cause?  Skip the bank, oilfield company and their charitable funds.   You find the local beer distributor and kiss his ring first. 

But it appears that even the politicians in Austin have finally seen the light and successfully challenged  Big Beer's grip   They see all these Craft Breweries, vineyards, and distilleries  popping up in their districts and  the spinoff economic activity as a result.  So credit to them for going up against Big Beer and getting this done.  Big beer must have seen the light  as well if they willingly came to the table with a compromise because it went nowhere last time it was tried.  

They only saw the light only once it made it out of committee and onto the floor where all of their votes would be seen by the public. Prior to that it barely made it out of committee passing by only two or so votes. It was a UT grad senator, Dawn Buckingham (R - Lakeway), that I believe had a lot to do with it getting passed. 

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1 hour ago, Baconboy said:

They only saw the light only once it made it out of committee and onto the floor where all of their votes would be seen by the public. Prior to that it barely made it out of committee passing by only two or so votes. It was a UT grad senator, Dawn Buckingham (R - Lakeway), that I believe had a lot to do with it getting passed. 

The beer to go bill never made it out of committee. It was amended onto the TABC sunset bill on the floor of the House. The Senate then lowered the amount one can buy from 2 cases to 1 case.  What passed today was the conference committee report that reconciled the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. 

Edited by destroya
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10 hours ago, boknowstecmo said:

We'll get to buy beer at 10am on Sundays now, so that's something I guess.

Unfortunately that didn’t pass.

The language allowing 10 am sales was amended onto the TABC sunset bill on the House floor. It was removed by the Senate and didn’t make it into the conference committee report.

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7 hours ago, destroya said:

The beer to go bill never made it out of committee. It was amended onto the TABC sunset bill on the floor of the House. The Senate then lowered the amount one can buy from 2 cases to 1 case.  What passed today was the conference committee report that reconciled the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill. 

Either way, it's some progress.  The ball was moved down filed pretty significantly although the 10 am sales thing still doesn't make a lick of sense.  

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Damn, this has been legal in Alabama for four years and I thought we were woefully late to the game.

I’m surprised it’s taken Texas this long to catch up.

It’s not often Talibama isn’t dead last on finally passing laws like this to catch up to the rest of the modern world.

Y’all really are behind the times if you’re four years behind our 1950s chucklefucks.

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