They will spend about an hour or two on housekeeping stuff and local bills before moving to the special order calendar. Once they start on the calendar, we’re the seventh bill to be considered. We have invested in some server upgrades since last year, so you should hopefully be able to get the news here [...]
Author Archives: Dan Roberts
What to expect Tuesday
Representative Mike Ball has agreed to handle SB192 on the floor of the House. Our bill will be introduced with a substitute pending. (pdf of the substitute). The substitute favored by the House Committee on Economic Development and Tourism must be approved by the full House, so a motion to adopt the substitute will come [...]
SB192 on the House agenda Tuesday
SB192, the Brewery Modernization Act, will be on the Special Order Calendar for the Alabama House on Tuesday, May 31. We are the seventh bill on the list. Now is a good time to start contacting your elected representatives. Also expect a Legislative Update email on Monday as a reminder. UPDATE: Forgot to mention that [...]
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Patience
I guess I never explicitly explained this here – the Alabama legislature took a two-week break to hold hearings on redistricting. This is a big requirement they have to accomplish after the census last year. During the break, no bills were able to move, including our SB192. They came back this week. We hope SB192 [...]
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Birmingham News on SB192
Birmingham News: Alabama beer brewing laws near change, but some say not far enough A pretty good overview of the bill’s current status, including the fact that the compromise is a little controversial. However, I want to point out a few points that I think aren’t quite accurate. This isn’t an indictment of the author [...]
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Rocket City Brewfest weekend
This is going to be the best Rocket City Brewfest yet by far. In addition to some great beers from the breweries listed on our website, we have an impressive list of special releases for everyone. Here is just a sample. In some cases, the Rocket City Brewfest is the ONLY place you will be [...]
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National Homebrew Day
Huntsville Beer reminded us that today was National Homebrew Day. If you’re looking for some group therapy support after listening to the homebrew bill debate from last week that ultimately ended in the defeat of this year’s homebrew legalization efforts, I also recommend checking out Dan Murphy’s piece in the Press-Register. Last week, I committed [...]
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Speculation
There seems to be a lot of speculation floating around about why we accepted the substitute and ended the boycott. Some of it is from people trying to support our decision and some of it is from critics of the decision. It was not the tornadoes. I’m sure that had some affect on our psyche [...]
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SB192 passes House committee
The substitute passed committee this morning. Now we work to get on the House calendar for a full vote. Because there is a substitute, the Senate will have to concur with the change. This is a quick procedural vote and should not affect our timeline.
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Details of the substitute
Perhaps the biggest thing we conceded, in the eyes of the distributors, is maintaining the separation between brewpubs and production breweries. Alcohol laws are very specific to individual states, and in Alabama the brewpub license is a special class of license which allows a manufacturer of beer to sell directly to the public. It is [...]
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