Probably not, I’m guessing. If money and beer change hands, any well written law would consider it a sale regardless of time lapse. Whether it’s legal to sell a beer membership probably depends mostly on state law.
I’m not sure if your comment was triggered by mine that they didn’t sell beer. But Burlington’s kickstarter sold swag only. The CSB is sold directly through the brewery.
There’s a place in Chicago that was initially going to go full-on CSB but realized they kind of needed some infrastructure first. Now that they (almost) have that all in place, they are reintroducing their CSB plans. Here is a recent article about it:
If joining the membership includes a portion of free beer then no, there is no legal distinction.
I took a look at what info was available on that website. It’s highly suspect but at least taking the website at face value they aren’t really crowdsourcing. They are selling private placements to accredited investors in which investors are taking on equity in the company, at least as far the offer I found on the website. We’ll see how long the SEC lets that stick around.
There are two sides to that site, separated by very different sign up processes. The one you were looking at is only for accredited investors. The other side, labeled I think ‘Rewards Campaigns’ is the non-equity side.
I see what you’re saying. Yeah, those breweries are definitely offering beer in exchange for money, which is a beer sale. The FAQ on that side of the website says no beer sales without proper distribution channels in place but obviously they aren’t doing much in the way of regulating their own website. I’m sure the TTB and/or the IRS will come knocking soon enough.
I absolutely intend on having a presale model ala The Bruery or The Rare Barrel for barrel-aged releases.
However, I think brand identity (and demand) needs to be established beforehand. Not supplying demand after you’re already in the market is bad enough. I would imagine if you didn’t supply a pre-paid demand, your brand would go to the 7th circle of Beer Blogger hell. Big risk. Once you know what you can produce, and your customers know the quality is worth buying in, pre-sale allows you to keep the wheels turning while sitting on beer. I also think its a unique interaction with customers that generates buzz and excitement.
The Rare Barrel sold pre-sale, reserve memberships before they had product in the market and did quite well. I don’t see how I could ask my customers to buy $300 in beer before they’ve tried any of it.
As long as self distribution is legal in their state, everything should be fine as long as the customer picks up the beer at the brewery. If beer is being shipped to customers, they have to deal with receiving state laws as well. But shipping could be done following the procedures of a beer of the month club. And if they’re not paying TTB/IRS taxes, then that’s really a separate issue.
The issue is that the website is facilitating beer sales to the final customer and taking a cut of what is received, which sounds like retailing. The website is doing business across state lines which makes it subject to federal jurisdiction, hence the TTB involvement.
A retailer profits from the purchase and sale of product. The website isn’t buying anything, its just providing a service to the brewery. The more times the service is provided, the more profit is earned. Seems more like the “Square” app used by Tasting Rooms to accept credit cars.
+1, if taking a cut of monies earned by selling alcohol were any different than any other sale things would be very difficult for credit card processors, payroll processors, tax preparers, delivery companies…
Ticket sales to beer festivals would be a similar situation. Money is exchanged over state lines, but the beer is not. Online ticket vendors don’t need liquor licenses.