Looks like we’ve had a crackdown lately in Western NC by the NC ALE. I suspect this will affect all craft breweries and festivals in the state.
As the owner of a brewery I am not allowed to put my hands on my own jockey box to serve beer to myself or anyone during festivals. Stupid.
That’s how it was in Michigan at NHC…I hated it. A lot of the brewers weren’t even there and you had the banquet staff serving who barely knew it was beer they were serving.
Really dumb. Overreaching and micro managing at its finest.
That seems to be the new norm. For Special Event permits here in LA, no brewery employee can serve beer. They can stand in front of the table to answer questions, but only either volunteers or paid staff can serve commercial beer.
This is true, but there are 4 festivals in MI put on by the Michigan Brewers Guild, and the Brewers can serve beer at those. The summer beer fest is this weekend. Yeah!
“Call someplace paradise, kiss it goodbye.”–Don Henley
Why is it that whenever you have a good thing, someone feels that they have to come along and ruin it. Naturally, if you have an organization like ALE, they are going to look for ways to flex their muscle. NC brewers and all of us beer lovers need to push back and let them know that’s not okay. Unchecked, they’ll screw up the best thing that’s happened in NC.
It’s not necessarily their fault. They simply enforce the laws. The laws most likely need to be changed. Write your representatives.
The way I interpret the violation it actually didn’t occur. The key word is premises…
How are the licenses granted for festivals? Our state has special event permits for most festivals since they are not held by a single brewery or necessarily on a licensed premises. The special event permit is effectively a 3 day (or less) liquor license which treats that festival like any other retail establishment. So, just like distributors are prohibited from giving away supplies or labor to a bar under many circumstances, they are likewise prohibited from giving supplies to the festival under those circumstances. Exceptions are made for certain things if the festival licensee is a 501(c)(3) charity (breweries can now donate beer directly to the charity where previously they had to donate money for the purchase of the beer from the wholesaler). But the serving is treated exactly as though it were a bar subject to any restrictions.