Architects work with state brewers guild on COVID challenges
Matthew Tota
Few breweries have ever designed a taproom with a pandemic in mind.
Before last March, I would have told you that’s a good thing. Taprooms should embrace close quarters and communal reveling. I should feel cramped waiting at the bar to place my drink order in a warm, crowded room. We should sit outside only in 70-degree weather under the sun’s splendor.
Now, though, give me space, give me hand sanitizer stations, give me an outdoor seat no matter how cold, because not only does it mean I can still go to breweries, it also means breweries can stay in business.
For 50 years in Massachusetts, craft breweries have lacked the power to easily jump from one wholesaler to the next because of a law, written when their industry did not exist, binding them to lifetime contracts.
Distributors have held sway, empowered to a level where they can buy and sell craft beer brands without say from the brewers.
No longer.
At 3:26 a.m. Jan. 6, hours before the end of the 2020 legislative session, the House passed a bill that allows brewers producing fewer than 250,000 barrels a year 99% of the breweries in the state to end their relationship with a distributor as long as they give 30 days’ notice and pay “fair market value” for their brand rights. The bill goes to Gov. Charlie Baker to sign into law.
Craft breweries score a long-awaited victory at the State House
Legislators agreed to a compromise that would help brewers expand
By Jon Chesto Globe Staff,Updated January 8, 2021, 11:49 a.m.
Email to a Friend
Finally, a compromise has been reached between brewers and distributors in Massachusetts.JackÃs Abby Craft Lagers
Craft brewers in Massachusetts can pour a cold one now and celebrate the last-minute approval of compromise legislation on Beacon Hill to help them break free of relationships with their distributors that may be hindering their growth.
The measure, enacted in the early morning hours on Wednesday, solidifies a deal struck between the Massachusetts Brewers Guild and the Beer Distributors of Massachusetts in July. The two sides reached a truce after a decade or so of warring over legal changes that would make it easier for brewers to walk away from their distributors.
Sam Hendler was still in his office at Jackâs Abby brewing in Framingham at 2:45 a.m. on Wednesday, with a livestream of the proceedings in the Massachusetts House playing on his computer.
Hendler, the founder of the brewery, had spoken to Senate President Karen Spilka on the phone about an hour earlier, and everything seemed to be falling into place. After 10 years, the Legislature was on the cusp of finally approving a deal he helped negotiate with beer wholesalers over distribution rights for small craft beers.
But he needed to watch the vote himself. He would wind up driving home and watching the final vote from bed.