First, a link to the current NJ Licensing Laws
Relevant parts:
The holder of this license shall be entitled to sell this product at retail to consumers on the licensed premises of the brewery for consumption on the premises, but only in connection with a tour of the brewery, or for consumption off the premises in a quantity of not more than 15.5 fluid gallons per person, and to offer samples for sampling purposes only pursuant to an annual permit issued by the director.
and
For the purposes of this subsection, “sampling” means the selling at a nominal charge or the gratuitous offering of an open container not exceeding four ounces of any malt alcoholic beverage. For the purposes of this subsection, “product” means any malt alcoholic beverage that is produced on the premises licensed under this subsection.
In a nutshell, here in the lovely state of Nazi Jersey New Jersey, you cannot have a Tap Room at your brewery where customers can walk in, sit down at the bar and order a beer unless they take a tour first. As everyone who has thought of the idea of opening a brewery has figured out, retail pint sales are where the real money is made.
So for the last few months I’ve been trying to find out the exact technical meaning of the word “Tour”. No one at the local or state level can tell me what a “Tour” is. So if that’s the case, I am now taking it upon myself to define it as such:
Brewery Tour: Show them how the brewery works.
So in my current dream-state, this means any info about how the brewery works is part of the tour. Here is where my crazy, loophole-ridden psyche takes over.
What if you put a LCD TV on a stand where your customers walk in that plays a video loop of the brewing process? Is that a tour? Why yes, yes it is.
What if you were walked to the Tap Room by a guide that explains the process by pointing to pictures of the brewing process that are hanging on the wall that leads to the Tap Room? Is that a tour? Why yes, yes it is.
I’ve come up with about 20 of these loopholes and since there is no concrete definition of what a tour is or what it has to entail, we’re free to interpret it as we see fit until they come and take me to jail, right?
Denny, you have the Conn, Kirk out. <<–see what i did there!?
Tonyp