UPDATE: Here’s Creative Loafing’s rundown of the passing of the “decimated” bill.
Been waiting for an update on whether Senate Bill 63 (aka “Beer Jobs Bill) was passed by the Senate’s Regulated Industries Committee? Can’t find anything? Well thank goodness for Wild Heaven Brewery’s Facebook page, which posted the following a couple of hours ago…
Amended #SB63 passes Senate Regulated Industries Committee unanimously.
Now its off to the Rules Committee who will decide whether it will reach the floor of the Senate for a vote. Then it needs to head over to the House and run itself through the whole process again.
More info on the amended bill as we have it.
Photo courtesy of Wild Heaven’s Facebook page
Unfortunately from what I understand, the revisions basically gutted it. Breweries still can’t sell direct. They can serve a bit more with the tour price, and can sell a growler to go. There are conflicting stores, but this is what I have been hearing the most. If true – just horrendous.
Hmmm. Sounds like I should put “amended” in the title.
One growler per person I assume? Well that’s something I guess, since a lot of the smaller breweries don’t can or bottle some of their beers anyway. Speaking of bottles and cans, I finally had a bomber of a Burnt Hickory beer (the Cannon Dragger) and it was very good. But for my money, the best locally brewed IPA (DIPA, actually) is the Orpheus Transmigration of Souls (yes, J_T, go ahead and laugh), now available in six packs of cans.
Yes, one growler per. However, I hear this is only as an upgrade to buying a tour sampler. Can’t just go in and get a growler. Again, no confirmation, but what I am hearing. Yes, the Cannon Dragger is quite good. As is Orpheus TOS.
Here’s a link to the Creative Loafing Article…
http://clatl.com/omnivore/archives/2015/03/06/decimated-beer-jobs-bill-passes-through-regulated-industries
To me, the entire process is devolving into a farce.
Yes it is. This is real special regarding brewpubs: “consumers who buy a meal at a brewpub could also buy a growler with the meal, then take home the remainder of the growler that they don’t drink with their food.”
They have to consume some of it on premises! What a joke.
That is odd considering there are restaurants in the metro area where you can grab a growler to-go now. You don’t have to drink any of it on-premise.
Yes, but doesn’t the beer in those growlers come from a distributor? I assume that’s why it’s not a problem.
Yeah, good point. The beer in the taps comes from the distributor. The retail license holder is allowed to bottle it to go because of local ordinances.
This is hopeful (slightly): “If the new SB 63 makes it the rest of the way through the Senate, the GCBG has the option to introduce the original bill in the House in hopes of making it through. If it does, the Senate and House version of the bill will have to be reconciled in a conference committee where Palmer’s hopeful a compromise in favor of Georgia breweries could be struck.”
These politicians were bought by the distributors. Embarrassing.
We are witnessing the sausage being made. As noted in the CL story, it’s important just to get this bill, in any form, out of the senate and over to the house before crossover day. There is a chance that some of the original provisions could make it back into a compromise bill. I agree that these new provisions are ridiculous, but let’s not lose hope for an end product that will work. So what I’m saying is . . . we have a chance.
Getting a bill out of committees means you have to make the chairperson happy. And you have to do it twice: in whatever committee its assigned and the Rules Committee.
It’s a little hazy, but I vaguely remember Senate Rules Committee Chair Don Balfour making a senator sweat during deliberation of a bill until that senator said something nice about Waffle House (Balfour’s employer). It was done a little in jest, but it is possible that a Rules Committee chair could block your bill for any reason.