• Odell Brewing underwrites research on organic hops(@ The Coloradoan )

• New Belgium Forms Partnership to Research Organic Hops(@ The Full Pint Dot Com )

Cheers!

The Sunday Sales bill was quick and appeared to pass too easy. I know it has been a long time coming, but today Gov. Bill Ritter finally signed into law a bill that would allow liquor sales on Sundays. Beginning July 1st (or July 6th which is actually Sunday), consumers will be able to go to their local liquor store to purchase their craft beer. That’s one small step for man…

The story is how fast grocery and convenience stores are rallying to be able to sell full-strength beer instead of the 3.2% ABV stuff they’re pushing on people. Thus, the battle continues…

Related
Sunday liquor-store sales OK’d
Sunday liquor bill signed into law

Having lived here pretty much my whole life, it’s going to be a strange feeling walking into a liquor store on a Sunday. It’s definitely more convenient than planning my drinking earlier in the week.

Cheers!

• Sunday liquor sales over the hurdle – Apparently domestic abuse and drunk driving will go up on Sundays now. Who elects some of these folks? (@ The Durango Herald)
• Sunday liquor sale bill passes House – Another example of whining from a liquor store owner. This time on the western slope. Again, you can stay closed if you want to. (@ Montrose Daily Press)
• Liquor sampling now legal in Lafayette – The Lafayette City Council passed a resolution to allow retail liquor establishments to have tastings in-store. I would definitely take advantage of this in order to save me from buying something I don’t like. (@ The Daily Camera)

At the same time, is aluminum the future of craft beer? New Belgium is jumping on the bandwagon for its benefits.

• New Belgium goes aluminum – Fat Tire in a can? (@ The Coloradoan)
• Odell celebrates small-batch brews – It’s great to see a local brewery supporting CSU’s efforts for sustainable hop growing. I going to have to make an effort to get up their for their festival on May 31st. (@ The Coloradoan)
• Hops and Fears on St. Pat’s Day – A great read about the mass producer’s sustainability and the nod to New Belgium for it’s eco-friendly production. (@ The Huffington Post)

On April 7, 2008 breweries across the United States will be hosting events, parties, tours and tastings to celebrate the 75th anniversary of when beer was the only legal beverage to produce here in the U.SA.  The full release from the Brewers Association is here detailing the events and the decisions that made it happen.  Their website, 75YearsofBeer.org, also has an interactive event page detailing what breweries are doing to mark the anniversary in your state.

Some of the things this bill will allow for:

• Allow a liquor-store owner to have three liquor licenses. Up from the limit of one.
• Allow a retail liquor store to allocate 5% of their store to selling nonperishable food items.
• Limit beer and wine sales in grocery stores to 5% of the licensed premises. Of that 5%, at least 20% has to be devoted to “craft beers” and at least 20% reserved for “boutique wines”.

The flaw I see in this law is based on how they define “boutique wine” and “craft beer”. According to their definition in the bill, a “boutique wine” means “a vinous liquor produced by a small domestic producer that qualifies for a credit against federal excise tax.” A “craft beer” means “a malt liquor manufactured by a domestic brewer that qualifies for a reduced federal excise tax rate.”

It is all well and good that they want to push craft beer and boutique wines, but in doing so, they leave open the option for these new liquor-selling grocery stores to work with distributors who may not “push” the sales of our local, Colorado-produced products. The state General Assembly threw out phrases like, “Colorado is a state that is rich in its supply of home-grown and home-produced products” and this law will “improve the availability of and access to locally produced beers and wines”, but they did not put in the wording into the bill that these new license should allocate a certain percentage to locally produced items.

Another aspect to the liquor laws that I am not too familiar with is how wholesale distribution works. It would then seem logical to me, that the bill introduce wording that these grocery stores be able to work directly with the brewers and breweries in the state to facilitate the selling of craft beer and boutique wine. Eliminate the middle man sort of speak. I can see a distributor not wanting to work with local producers, whether it be a grudge or monetary reasons, and completely shutting the door for smaller beer and wine produces in access to the grocery stores. Imagine if a distributor had a falling out with New Belgium and didn’t allow for the sale of their products. I thought I read something a while back about a similar thing happening to Bell’s Brewery in Illinois.

Also what happened to making the Super Targets, and the Super Wal-Marts, and the Super K-Marts, and the Super Sears Grands ineligible for these licenses? That seems to have gotten swept under the rug. And who is going to enforce the square footage limitations on these grocery and liquor stores?

An interesting aspect of the bill that I may not be reading correctly is that it “allows the appropriate licensing authoity to deny a grocery store license when the authority determines that issuance of the license will cause an undue concentration of a similar class of licensed retail establishments and will require additional law enforcement resources.” Does this mean that the local license authority deny a grocery store a license due to a liquor store being right next door already? Interesting if they could do that. Or worse, the authority could deny the liquor store a renewal since the grocery store now has one?

While I am still in favor of allowing sales in grocery stores, I feel the law makers need to tidy up their bill a bit if they want to really help the availability of locally produced beer and wine. If not, here is the opening for the smaller liquor stores to specialize in locally-produced items that I wrote about in a previous post.

On a good note, it sounds like sales on Sunday might be a done deal. That being said, you never quite know what goes on behind closed doors in politics.

Battle Brewing Over Alcohol Sales At Grocery Stores (@ 7News – TheDenverChannel.com)

Sunday booze sales could soon be a reality (@ 9News.com)

Colo.: Fight Over Liquor Sales Brewing (@ The Houston Chronical)

Grocery shopping list: eggs, milk, wine and beer (@ 9News.com)