E-Malt.com News article: USA, OH: Craft breweries allowed to offer samples on site

Ohio’s growing craft brewing industry and its emerging microdistillery sector both gained new freedoms on December, 21, Wdtn.com reported on December, 26.

Gov. John Kasich signed Ohio House Bill 243 into law Dec. 21, eliminating an extra permit for beer makers who want to offer samples. It also enables microdistilleries to sell on site and makes it easier to sample on site. The changes bring both breweries and distilleries closer to the freedoms afforded wineries, which have been able to both sell and offer samples from their production sites.

Production breweries — those that aren’t brewpubs with an attached restaurant — had to spend an extra $4,000 annually for a permit that would allow sampling in their facilities.

Lifting that restriction should be welcome news to the growing craft brew community. Four String Brewing Co., for one, near Grandview Heights in the Columbus area, already has plans to open a tap room. The startup began selling its beer in the market in the last month and is one of several area entrepreneurs getting into the beer business.

Neil House Brewery, a Columbus-area microbrewer that opened last year, also plans to add a tasting room in 2012.

Owner Patrick Kelleher said visitors already ask for samples all the time.

“I have to tell them up front, I can show you but you can’t drink it,” he said. “We can talk about beer, but there is no happy ending. You just get to stare at the beer.”

Neil House also has a homebrewer supply store. The ability to sell samples will also help that business as he’ll be able to let customers taste how different combinations of grains and hops taste in a finished product.

“This will help create additional revenue for us,” Kelleher said.


30 December, 2011