Brewers wary of growler debate
TALLAHASSEE — An effort that would allow small craft brewers to pour beer into half-gallon containers may advance during the 2015 legislative session without becoming part of a package of other beverage issues.
Proposals to end the state’s prohibition on 64-ounce containers known as “growlers’’ have been blocked in recent years by large beer distributors claiming a need to protect the state’s Depression-era three-tier regulation system, which requires the manufacture, distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages to be separated.
But an association of Florida’s AnheuserBusch beer distributors announced it wouldn’t push lawmakers to mix a variety of issues into any bill strictly seeking to end the state’s decades-old ban on growlers.
However, a lobbyist for craft brewers isn’t ready to swallow what the distributors are selling just yet.
“I think part of it is disingenuous,’’ Joshua Aubuchon, a lawyer and lobbyist for the Florida Brewers Guild, said. “If they had been in support of the half-gallon size the past three years, it would have been impossible for the (half-gallon) sales to remain illegal.’’
Florida allows brew pubs to fill 32-ounce containers and gallon buckets, but not the 64-ounce growlers, which are considered the industry standard.
On Monday, the Florida Beer Wholesalers Association, in announcing it won’t seek to add unrelated issues into 2015 growler bills, said mixing the issues has muddled all beverage measures.
“I want to make it clear that we have not changed our support for lifting the restriction on growlers, but we believe it is now time to separate the growler issue from the larger conversation,’’ Mitch Rubin, a lobbyist for the distributors’ Florida Beer Wholesalers Association, said in a prepared statement.
There have yet to be any beverage-related bills filed for the session, but the brewers and distributors say a number are in the works.
During the 2014 session, a growler measure died after language was added that would have limited how much beer a craft brewer could sell off property and how the product could be moved. Such issues are expected back in 2015.
Aubuchon said efforts to put caps on craft brewery sales are short-sighted.
“The problem is, for us, if I open a brewery, and I’m able to sell in my own tap room, that’s great, it helps me build revenue and test product,’’ Aubuchon said. “But if I have any business acumen at all, I’m going to want my beer to be sold at hundreds of locations. And the only way to do that with the current law is to go through distributors.’’