(UPDATED)
There's good news and bad news as the bill to legalize 64-ounce beer growlers makes its way through the Legislature.
The good: The bill has been amended to clarify who can and can't sell growlers: refillable bottles that let people take draft beer home.
A 64-ounce growler of beer, currently illegal in Florida. (AP archive)
While the original version of the bill simply legalized the industry-standard 64-ounce growler, the new language, added by Sen. Nancy Detert, R-Venice, adds that they can be sold by a brewery or by a vendor that's licensed for consumption on the premises. To me this means that breweries, bars and brewpubs would be allowed to sell growlers to go. The growlers would have to be sealed so they could not be immediately consumed, according to the bill.
This amendment has been approved and incorporated into the bill.
The only thing I would like to add to this would be to allow stores to sell growlers to go. In other states there are just stores that fill growlers, and in some states you can get a growler at a gas station or at the grocery. Wouldn't that be cool?
The bad: Another amendment has been introduced by Sen. Maria Lorts Sachs, D-Delray Beach, that would rewrite the original bill and greatly restrict who can and can't sell growlers. The amendment is supported by the Florida Beer Wholesalers Association, the same group that once opposed the move to lift restrictions on bottle sizes. Lifting those restrictions helped usher in Florida's craft beer renaissance.
Here are key points of the amendment, which hasn't been adopted.
• It restricts growler sales to a new category of brewer, the "Startup brewery," which produces no more than 2,500 kegs a year. Only a startup brewery would be allowed to sell growlers. If passed this would mean a brewery like Cigar City could not sell growlers because it makes more than 2,500 kegs a year. Only the smallest breweries could sell growlers.
I'm not sure, but I believe this amendment also would keep all breweries larger than the new "startup" size from selling any beer directly to consumers, even by the glass in a tasting room.
• Brewpubs could not sell growlers. The amendment would also reduce the amount of beer a brewpub could make each year from 10,000 kegs to 5,000 kegs.
• It rewrites the tourism exception that breweries are currently using to sell growlers. They would no longer be able to use that exemption, which would now just apply to theme parks. (The complex would have to be at least 25 acres; there would be permanent exhibitions; and there would have to be at least 1 million paid visitors annually, among other restrictions.)
In short, this amendment would make things worse, not better, for beer geeks.
Note that this amendment has been introduced but not passed.
UPDATE: Sachs wants to hear from people about the amendment she introduced. She asks for people to email lewis.caitlin@flsenate.gov.
