2beerguys beer blog

Archaic beer laws are haunting Montana residents

OK. I read this story today (sorry, it’s semi long) and I immediately thought — NO WAY — removing beer from the shelf that was approved for local sale? Punishing a local retailer for a law thats out dated?

Drink Craft Beer, You’ve Earned It!!!

1930s-era law troubles brewers, retailers
By JOHN S. ADAMS – Tribune Capitol Bureau

HELENA—When is a bottle of beer not a beer?
When it’s above 7 percent alcohol by weight, according to a 1930s-era state law some Montana retailers and brewers want changed.

A Helena grocer who specializes in selling rare, high-end beers and wines from around the world learned about the law the hard way last week. According to reports swirling around Montana’s beer and wine community, which a state officials would not confirm, authorities from the state revenue and justice departments confiscated an undisclosed amount of high-alcohol content beers from Topper’s Cellar in Helena late last week.

The state law in question was passed in 1933, at the end of a 13-year federal prohibition of alcohol, and was amended in 1947. Under the law any beer over 7 percent alcohol by weight, or about 8.75 percent by volume, is considered liquor, and thus subject to state liquor laws.

Manufacturers, retails and connoisseurs of those high-end craft beers say the law is outdated and needs to be reformed.

“I’ve got a son in Denver. I can go there and look up the big beer and wine stores and they have got hundreds of beers that I can buy there but I can’t get here,” said Great Falls beer connoisseur and home brewer Mark Baune. “I think the Montana laws are B.S., quite frankly.”

Mickey Galloway, the 37-year proprietors of Topper’s Cellar in Helena, declined to comment on last week’s visit by state authorities other than to say that they purchased all of their products through state-licensed beer distributors and believed they were following the law.

Jason Wood, bureau chief for the state revenue department’s liquor licensing division, said he could “not confirm or deny” any occurrences at Topper’s.

He did say that the department had received a complaint about high-alcohol products being sold in the state at retailers other than state-licensed liquor stores.

“The department has become aware of some products being sold in the state that are 9 percent or more by volume, which would classify them under (state law) as liquor,” Wood said.

Most imported and domestic beers contain between 3.5 and 6 percent alcohol by volume (or ABV in industry lingo). That translates to about 2.8 to 4.8 percent alcohol by weight.

There are hundreds of styles of beers available in the United States. They range from convenience store staples such as Pabst Blue Ribbon, which weighs in at about 5 percent alcohol by volume and sells for around $13 per case, to the rare Samuel Adams Utopias, which has an alcohol content of 25 percent by volume and sells for an eye-popping $600 per 24 ounce bottle.

According to state law, any retailer who knowingly sells beers above the state-allowed alcohol content without a liquor license faces steep penalties, including loss of their license and fines of up to $1,500. They could even face jail time.

That’s got many retailers on edge.

“I had one beer that came in over the radar, it was over what is known as the state maximum, and I pulled it from my shelves as soon as Topper had his incident,” said one Helena retailer who did not want to be named for fear of state action.

The retailer said both he and his beer distributor believed the Department of Revenue had cleared the sale and shipment of the beer in question.

“I’m assuming that the distributors know what they can and can’t sell,” said Gene Betz, owner of Vintage Sellers in Great Falls. “I believed that every product sold by Montana distributors was being approved by the state. We assumed that whatever was being available to us was approved and we weren’t at risk.”

Betz said he talks to customers almost every day who are disappointed to learn that they can’t legally purchase popular, rare beers such Chimay Blue ale, which is brewed by Trappist monks in Belgium and has an alcohol content of about 9 percent by volume, or about a quarter of a percent above the state-allowed maximum alcohol content.

The majority of the high-end beers for sale in Montana usually sell for anywhere from $3 to $16 per bottle and up to $300 per case.

“People have to realize that stores like ours wouldn’t be looking for those kinds of products unless customers were coming to us and asking for them,” Betz said.

Betz said he thinks it’s ridiculous that liquor stores can legally sell spirits like the 190-proof Everclear, which is 95 percent alcohol by volume, but grocers can’t sell beer that exceeds 8.75 percent ABV, or about 17.5-proof.

“The law is just wrong,” Betz said. “Laws can be perfectly right when they are passed and then 10 years later they are no longer right. Society is changing.”

Neal Leathers, co-founder and president of state’s largest brewery, Big Sky Brewing in Missoula, said retailers aren’t the only Montana businesses hampered by the 75-year-old beer law.

Leathers said Big Sky wants to brew a traditional barley wine—a heavy ale with an alcohol content typically in the 8 to 12 percent range—but may be prohibited by state law from doing so.

“We’ve been thinking about that for a while because we are the one brewery in the state of Montana that does a lot of sales outside of Montana,” Leathers said. “If we’re selling beer in Seattle and Portland and Denver, and these are really advanced beer markets, we can’t put out a barley wine or an imperial stout because it’s against state law.”

Leathers said the brewery can make a lower alcohol version of the beer, but that defeats the purpose.

“For certain beer styles the alcohol is a part of the flavor. In some styles of beer that’s what defines that style,” Leathers said.

Leathers said representatives from Big Sky met with officials from the Department of Revenue, the Montana Tavern Association, and beer wholesalers to talk about the possibility of updating the state law. He said state officials and MTA representatives didn’t see a problem with state breweries brewing the stronger beers if they distributed them through legal channels, which in this case means through state-approved liquor wholesalers and retailers.

Leathers said Big Sky’s attorneys have reviewed current state law and it’s their belief that Big Sky would be permitted to brew the stronger beers and sell them in- and out-of-state if done so through licensed liquor wholesalers. He said the revenue department is reviewing that opinion but that no determination has yet been made.

An official for MTA said his members don’t have a problem with Big Sky brewing and selling higher alcohol beers, as long as they follow state laws.

“MTA has told them that as long as they continued to go through appropriate outlets, we could see no reason that they should not have same privilege as out of state manufacturers,” said MTA attorney Mark Staples. “We said, ‘we would be happy to distribute those and sell those for you and would be proud to carry your product, all that would really require is that they get the same privilege that the out of state manufacturers do.'”

Staples said the one of pitfalls of broadening the discussion about increasing the allowable alcohol content of beer is the inevitable push-back from groups concerned about the prevalence of alcohol and alcoholism in Montana.

Some groups are concerned it would open the door for a slew of cheap, high-alcohol malt beverages to enter the state. State Sen. Carol Juneau, D-Browning, has already requested a bill to regulate the sale of so-called alcoholic “energy drinks,” which are gaining in popularity among younger drinkers and are readily available at gas stations and convenience stores in Montana.

“There’s a delicate balance between the forces that want to knock everything wide open and other forces that say, ‘how do we stem the ubiquity of alcohol in our culture?'” Staples said.

But retailers and connoisseurs of high-end, high-alcohol beers say they’re not interested in selling or consuming rare beers for the purposes of getting drunk. At up to $50 for a bottle of Chimay Blue, that would amount to a pretty expensive buzz.

“The vast majorities of beer that are high in alcohol are just too plain expensive for that,” Betz said. “The types of people that shop at my store are not the kinds of people that are interested in getting blitzed every night.”

Link to article.