Assembly approves revised bill on breweries

The General Assembly paved the way Saturday for beer giant Guinness to open a tourist-destination brewery in Baltimore County and for other big breweries across the state to sell significantly more beer in taprooms.

The House of Delegates granted final passage Saturday to a deal reached Friday that writes new liquor laws to accommodate Guinness’ proposed $50 million project in Relay and lets so-called “production breweries” such as Flying Dog and Heavy Seas sell four times as many pints in their taprooms each year.

The bill would also allow existing production breweries to keep their taprooms open as late as their county allows. Taprooms at new production breweries would have to close by 10 nightly.

Microbreweries and farm breweries would not be affected.