Asheville, North Carolina is becoming the craft brewery capital of the Southeast, if not the nation, State Rep. Tim Moffitt claims, and a new law could accelerate that:
The legislation now before Gov. Bev Perdue would allow all breweries in the state, regardless of size, to offer tastings and sell beer onsite, even beers they produce outside North Carolina.
It’s aimed at attracting Sierra Nevada and New Belgium, two well-known midsize breweries, to western North Carolina. But brewers hope it further ferments the state’s reputation as a beer capital.
Todd Ford, who opened the NoDa Brewing Company and taproom with his wife a month ago, said he doesn’t worry about the potential competition. He feels a law that boosts interest in craft beers or beer tourism will benefit brewers like him.
“If somebody’s likely to go to a Sierra Nevada taproom and have a Sierra Nevada beer, they’re more likely to try my beer,” he said. “I may have to share those sales with Sierra Nevada, but it’s much more likely to bring more craft beer drinkers to me.”
Until now, state law reserved the beer garden niche to breweries that produced less than 25,000 barrels a year, using the cap as a way to help regulate alcohol sales. All of the state’s approximately 50 small craft breweries fit under the ceiling in the existing law.
State Rep. Tim Moffitt, an Asheville Republican, said the change would help attract the Colorado-based New Belgium and the California-based Sierra Nevada to open East Coast production facilities, potentially creating about 275 jobs and more than $200 million in capital investments.
New Belgium is looking to open a facility in Asheville and Sierra Nevada is eyeing property in Hendersonville, officials said.
“Asheville is becoming the craft brewery capital of the Southeast, if not the nation,” Moffitt said. “This was a small change in the law to allow our state to benefit from additional jobs and additional investment.”
The bulk of North Carolina’s current small breweries produce less than 20,000 barrels a year, but the two new companies could each produce about 200,000 barrels annually, officials said.
But by removing the cap, the law also would allow mega-beer producers, such as Budweiser and MillerCoors, to tread on the craft brewers’ turf with tasting rooms. MillerCoors owns a brewery in Eden that produces 9 million barrels a day, but a beverage industry representative told lawmakers there are no current plans for it to develop an onsite retail component.
The folks at Reason are clearly in favor of free beer… markets: