Location and Laws

What is the best way to determine the answers to the following questions:

Which license(s) do I need? What will they cost?
I would like to have a production brewery with a tasting room.

I am not sure if I can sell directly or if I need distribution in MA

Is the town I want to set up shop in, going to allow me to do business there?
What zoning or location restrictions might there be?

thanks

Start with your city government. The questions they can’t answer, call the county. The questions they can’t answer, call the state.

Get a good lawyer.

I don’t think you need a lawyer but it wouldn’t hurt. I’m not sure about your state but I needed an ABC license and it costs a thousand bucks or so. You have to register with the TTB. In our case we had to have our brewery laid out with actual photos of equipment in place to get the ABC license.

we also needed to be approved by a city council vote. Lots of other local regulation we had to jump through, we hired an architect to design the brewery and tell us what we were going to need to do rather than have to go back and forth with city. IIt worked, we got approved first pass.

I honestly can;t remember much else.  Contact your state version of ABC and see what they say, that would be my first step.

There are a lot of nice smart helpful people here.  I’m not 100% sure, but I’m confident none of them have opened a brewery in your state.  You really need expert help for this, so I’d contact the ABC/LCB and see what they say, or contact a brewer in your state and see if they can recommend someone or some agency to guide you through the process.

Here is a different situation, but you might find it helpful:
http://hessbrewing.blogspot.com/2010/01/ttb-brewery-approval.html

In my state - My district health inspector (the one who does food manufacturing) is the one who would inspect my facility. So whatever he wanted, I’d need to do. My state agency just said to do whatever the local and Fed guy said. So expect to get a lot of run-around. The Feds were mostly concerned with taxes, and my ability to pay them.

There’s a good chance your local/city/county inspectors will have no idea what you’re trying to do, but if they’re good, they’ll defer to someone higher up the chain who does.