North Carolina Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association and Craft Freedom Initiative, a coalition of craft brewers, have agreed on a three-tier modernization bill that maintains the three-tier system but allows craft brewers to grow.
Craft breweries would be allowed to sell, deliver and ship at wholesale up to 50,000 barrels annually, double the current 25,000-barrel limit. Midsize craft brewers — a new classification — would be allowed to brew up to 100,000 barrels a year. However, they could only self-distribute 50,000.
Suzie Ford, co-owner of NoDa Brewing Co., and a member of the Craft Freedom initiative, said the issue was never about the use of a distributor. “We’re not anti-distributor. We just want to choose when and who we go with as we start distribution,” she says. “We want to own our backyard, not the entire state.”
NoDa expects to brew about 20,000 barrels this year, and plans to use a distributor as it gets larger.
If the legislation is passed, a lawsuit filed by Craft Freedom, NoDa and Olde Mecklenburg Brewery, will become moot. “The Craft Freedom movement was created to modernize the regulatory environment and we feel confident that mission has been achieved,” he said. The changes “will give a variety of options to breweries of all sizes in all corners of the state.”
“This agreement is a collaborative effort to encourage maturation of the law to mirror the growth experienced within the industry,” says Tim Kent, executive director of the N.C. Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association.