I was contemplating how much brewing it takes to hit the 200 gallon annual (legal) limit. Has anyone ever accomplished that? Bear with me here . .
I ask because time lines are important. Is it per calendar year, or from the time you make a batch? For a hypothetical example . . Starting January 1st 2009 through December 31st I brewed 100 gallons all of which was before August 1st. By August 1st of 2010 I’ve brewed another 200 gallons . . . but 100 gallons of that was during the winter months of '10. Could I retro that 1st 100 gallons of '10 back to call it 200 gallons from August '09 to August '10 and still be able to make another 100 gallons before December 31st 2010?
I’m pretty sure you would need to do something rather drastic (illegal) to bring enough attention to yourself that they would actually check out what you have in your house. I’m fairly certain the beer fuzz aren’t snooping at brew shops and monitoring your online orders :o
If you got caught selling/distributing homebrew and then they find 1000 gallons of brew in your micro-factory…THEN you should be concerned…I think the laws were made to give some teeth to tax laws…not to keep you from making as much beer as you can drink for personal consumption.
As a few people have already pointed out, it’s a calendar year (January 1 - December 31). The homebrew “exemption” is actually part of the tax code (it’s an exemption because it exempts us from having to pay a tax on homebrewed beer up to the prescribed limits). One of the common principles of the tax code is that each taxable year (which is a calendar year for most individual taxpayers) stands alone, unless otherwise specified.
So, theoretically, a single household could produce 200 gallons on December 31 and 200 gallons on January 1 and be just fine. ;D
26 U.S.C. section 5053(e) (e) Beer for personal or family use Subject to regulation prescribed by the Secretary, any adult may, without payment of tax, produce beer for personal or family use and not for sale. The aggregate amount of beer exempt from tax under this subsection with respect to any household shall not exceed - (1) 200 gallons per calendar year if there are 2 or more adults in such household, or (2) 100 gallons per calendar year if there is only 1 adult in such household. For purposes of this subsection, the term “adult” means an individual who has attained 18 years of age, or the minimum age (if any) established by law applicable in the locality in which the household is situated at which beer may be sold to individuals, whichever is greater.
Each tax year stands alone. It doesn’t matter what you’ve got left over. You could hoard until you had a back stock of 10000000^10 gallons (provided you lived that long).
True, but without it, we’d all face the same plight as moonshiners. Even if it’s not really enforceable (absent a really egregious violation), I’m glad it’s there.
The way law enforcement works is if you brought enough attention to yourself, say by getting caught selling some, your bank/debit/credit transactions would be subpoenaed along with the records of the suppliers you were found to be doing business with. You don’t have to be caught with over 200 gals on hand, they just have to prove you bought enough ingredients to produce that much.
So, you bought 5000 lbs of malt and 50 lbs of hops to make 200 gals?
