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 Ben Davis, who owns the four-year-old local craft brewery in
Jacksonville, counts on Underdark's two-day spike in revenue to grow
his small business.
But a bill pending in the Florida Senate that would cut into
Underdark's profit has craft beer-makers crying foul.
The law would force craft brewers to sell their bottled and canned
beer directly to a distributor. If they want to sell it in their own
tap rooms, they would then have to buy it back at what is typically
a 30-40 percent mark-up without the bottles or cans ever leaving the
brewery, according to Joshua Aubuchon, a lawyer and lobbyist for the
Florida Brewers Guild.
The rule would not apply to draft beer.
"That to me looks like racketeering," Aubuchon told Reuters.
While other states nurture craft breweries, the smaller craft
brewers say politically influential national distributors have drawn
a line in the sand in Florida to slow the growing popularity of
independents who offer an alternative to the standard American light
lager fare.
U.S. craft brew sales grew 18 percent by volume in 2013, while
overall beer sales dropped about 2 percent, according to the
national Brewers Association, which defines craft breweries as those
producing under 6 million barrels annually.
Still, the craft industry remains small, accounting for about 8
percent of all beer sold nationally but as high as 20 percent in
craft brew-friendly Oregon and in the double digits in states like
Colorado, California and Washington, said Brewers Association
director Paul Gatz.
In Florida, where craft brewers say their market share remains under
6 percent and most breweries produce under 3,000 barrels annually,
the small beer makers are out-gunned in the legislature, where
influential politicians have vowed loyalty to the national
distributors.
Mitch Rubin, lobbyist for the distributors' Florida Beer Wholesalers
Association, told Reuters their goal is to re-write the state's
rules governing the craft brewing industry to create strict lines
between manufacturers, distributors and retailers, which he said
would preserve competition.
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Craft brewers say the distributors' clout has resulted in odd
regulation in Florida, including a ban on the use of 64-ounce (half
gallon) "growlers," which are reusable jugs that can be filled
directly from a beer tap and sealed for sales to-go.
Florida allows the use of quart and gallon growlers, but the
64-ounce size is the most popular in 47 other states where it is
legal. Craft brewers are trying for a fourth straight year to
overturn the ban.
"It's not going to be that big of a deal (to distributors)," said
Joe Redner, owner of Tampa's Cigar City Brewing. "But their response
is always to come over the top with a nuclear option."
The result was a Senate bill filed without a named sponsor that
permits 64-ounce growlers but forces direct sales of all bottles and
cans to a distributor, Aubuchon said.
The bill passed its first committee hurdle last week by 10-0 vote.
By contrast, the Brewers Association counts 37 craft brew-friendly
states — Texas and Michigan most recently — that permit beer makers
to distribute their own beer under various limitations.
"What it's doing is it's allowing all these new breweries to pop up.
We're seeing more than a brewery opening per day," the Association's
Gatz said.
(Editing by David Adams)
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