The picture below is a pretty special one to me. Not only was I significantly younger and thinner, but it was taken alongside Texas craft beer lobbyists Jim Dow, Mark Homer and Jason Smith (Jim and Mark still represent Texas craft brewers today, Jason now works for the University of Houston) as we marched to the Capitol … Continued
I’ve told this story a million times, but here it is again. When I started working on building Freetail in 2006, I “borrowed” my business model from Sam Calagione and Dogfish Head: start as a brewpub to build our brand, and eventually move into distribution. One small detail in this business model: a brewpub distributing in … Continued
Figured it was time for an update here, since emails and tweets are starting to trickle in asking about the Texas Craft Beer Bills. After all, seemingly nothing has happened since they were voted out of Licensing & Administrative Procedures and sent to the House Calendars Committee on April 23. Well, I’m here to reassure everyone that … Continued
Senator John Carona, chairman of the Senate Business & Commerce Committee (where Senator Eltife’s craft beer bills have been referred) issued the following statement yesterday: “The outlook is bright for legislation to create new opportunities for craft brewers and brewpubs in Texas. For months we have worked to get to this point — several important pieces of … Continued
Lost in the shuffle of everything else beer related happening at the Capitol, Senator Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio) has filed SB 652, which would allow breweries and wineries to sell their products, in bulk, to distillers to further process into spirits. [Edit: wineries would still be forbidden from selling their wine to distillers … Continued
As Senate Bills 515, 516, 517 and 518 progress forward (we’ve added a handful of Senate Co-Authors, bringing the total up to 12 as of the writing of this blog), The Wholesale Beer Distributors of Texas have introduced their own legislation, which has been met by immediate backlash by other industry stakeholders, including some fellow … Continued
Just a quick round up of Press Reports on Craft Beer Legislation for the week. Ronnie Crocker broke the news of the beer bills on his Beer, TX Blog with this post. A more extensive story on the legislation ran the next day in the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News. (They are the same … Continued
Today, Senator Kevin Eltife (R-District 1) introduced bi-partisan legislation along with Co-Authors, Senators Brian Birdwell (R-District 22), John Carona (R-District 16), Eddie Lucio (D-District 27), Leticia Van de Putte (D-District 26), Kirk Watson (D-District 14), and John Whitmire (D-District 15) to modernize the state’s alcohol regulatory system to make more competitive Texas’s small, craft brewers. Senate Bills … Continued
