Brew Talks 2022 Boston - The Massachusetts Agenda: The Issues Facing Bay State Brewers

Justin Kendall [00:16] Welcome to Brewox. We are live in Boston, Massachusetts at the Samuel Adams Brewery in Jamaica Plain. Brotox is presented by Dogfish Head. My name is Justin Kendall and I'm the editor of Brebound, and we are so stoked that all of you are here supporting the Massachusetts Craft Brewers Guild. Supporting Bro Tas. And we've got a, I, I got a few thank yous to do here before we get going too far. Thank you to the Bevnet and Brewbound teams. You guys are killing it, allowing Zoey and me to do this up here. Give it up for my colleague Zoey uh down here. She's gonna be up here later today hosting our last panel of the day, and we've got 3 conversations for you. I'm gonna start it off today with Massachusetts Brewers Guild president Sam Hendler. We're gonna have a one on one conversation about where the legislative, uh, session is ending for the guild and the brewers of the state. Then we're gonna bring up right away our second panel on. Expanding taprooms and retail opportunities. We've got leaders from Castle Island, White Lion, Boston Beer, and Medusa here. And then we're gonna wrap it up after a networking break with Dogfish Head, Mass Bay Brewing, and Craft beer seller talking 4th category opportunities and pitfalls. So stick around for that. We are so stoked that you guys are here. We're stoked that everybody is tuning in live. And let's get a big thank you to our sponsors, Burke and Elmer. You can go over there if you're here in person and spin the wheel and make a deal. Uh, gotta give it up for the Reyes Beer Division for supporting Brew Tas and also Brew One and Hapes by the Bart Haas Group. So thank you to them. Uh, one, note for you all. Jess Infante, my tag team partner in all things, Brewbound couldn't be here today. She's a little bit under the weather and we wish her all the best as she gets better. So please give it up for Jess. Why don't y'all. So let's dive into our first conversation here with Sam Hendler. You are already on stage, so that's convenient for me. Um, Sam, the legislative session is wrapping up, uh, just in a couple of days. We are at the end, and by now you've probably got a good idea of what's going to pass and what's not. Give us an update on the guild's priorities, which include sales privileges at farmers' markets, brew pub self-distribution, and codifying some of those COVID privileges that y'all got.

Speaker 2 [03:02] Yeah, thanks for having me. Um. The probably most uh encouraging right now are codifying the uh additional flexibility the state has been offering on a temporary basis since COVID started for outdoor, uh, seating outdoor alcohol service, um. And we, we are very hopeful to see that pass in the next few days. Um, also encouraging the farmers' market language that we had put forward has been attached as an amendment to an economic development bill, uh, that is, that has passed the jeez, I'm gonna. Brutalize this. I believe that has passed the Senate. It was not on the economic development bill in the House, so it will now be kind of down to the conference committee as to whether or not that language is included in whatever final version passes, but there is a ray of light there, um, a little bit less encouraging on BrewPub self distribution. There does not seem right now to be a clear vehicle to get that across the finish line in the next few days, um. And then just keeping our eye on a lot of the other stuff that kinda happens really fast and furious right at the end of the session.

Justin Kendall [04:17] So this was the 3rd year that the farmers' market sales bill was attempted. I, I'm wondering, you know, you've got a lot of priorities that are, are sort of disparate. Would bundling some of these things sort of help get them across the finish line, get more juice behind them and support from, uh, lawmakers as well as just, you know, unifying everybody in the guild.

Speaker 2 [04:40] Yeah, it's definitely an interesting question. You know, as we look at our session this year, and it's, I'll correct you, it's not the 3rd year, it's the 3rd session. So 2-year sessions. It's been 6 years we've been talking about selling beer at farmers' markets. This is a privilege that the wineries in our state already have had for a decade, uh, seemingly something that isn't super controversial, not a huge amount of opposition to it. Um, but we're as a guild having a tough time getting the momentum behind it to actually get it all the way across the finish line. Um, I think it goes, it's a relatively similar story to BrewPub self-distribution, you know, not a ton of public opposition to it. Um, we're just not getting the juice behind it to get it over the finish line right now. Maybe we can kind of pull a rabbit out of the hat in the next couple of days, but we're up against it. The time, the clock is running out to zero. so I think as a guild, we need to talk about that strategy, how. These things that don't have a huge amount of opposition aren't getting across the finish line. And, you know, that falls on to me, the board, the, the entire team, but we, whether it's bundling things together so there's more brewers personally interested in each bill and you know, one bill may be covering multiple of these issues. Um, but I, you know, I think at its core, we as a brewing community, there's hundreds of breweries across the state. We need to be better organized around these issues. There's There's a brewery in just about every legislative district across the state, um, and if we don't have personal relationships, we're not going to get this stuff across the finish line. Every brewer should know their local legislators. These people want to be associated with thriving vibrant local businesses. We are part of the communities we are in. Our taprooms especially are often. Almost community centers with activities and events and and it's the perfect fodder for legislators to get involved in their communities and we need to be inviting them into these spaces we need to be talking with them ultimately we needed to be building relationships so that when one of these bills gets close or gets into hearings there is a legislator putting their name on it saying. I want this talking to their leadership saying this is important to my district in the end if if they're not saying that because they're not hearing it from their uh. Their district, this stuff isn't gonna get done, so we, you know, we're seeing even issues just getting our license type included in this legislation on noncontroversial issues. The outdoor seating bill for permanence of these loosened regulations was written in such a way the first draft came out only covered Section 12 licenses, brewers, uh, farmer brewers or Section 19 licenses as that first draft came out. We would not have received any of the benefit of that bill, um, you know, a, it's interesting now, not something we were specifically advocating for, but a, a attachment went on to a bill last week, I think the budget or economic development bill to allow for discounting of alcohol on premise, um, uh, quote unquote happy hour bill. Happy hour has been banned in Massachusetts for 35 some odd years. Uh, it was written to just include Section 12 licenses, Section 19 licenses, if that passes in the next couple of days, who knows? I, I don't think there's a consensus that it will, but if it passed as it stands right now, every bar and restaurant across the state would have the. Opportunity depending on their local uh government to do happy hour breweries would not and we need to have a better voice to make sure that doesn't continue happening so you're

Justin Kendall [08:53] running out of here right now and getting on the phone and telling them to include breweries in the happy hour bill, right?

Speaker 2 [09:00] Uh, you know, the message has been sent, like, you know, we're not gonna push really hard for this bill to pass, but if it does pass, yeah, we wanna be included. We don't wanna want a portion of licenses to have the ability to do something that another portion doesn't.

Justin Kendall [09:17] So things are wrapping up now. Uh, it's early. We don't know exactly where everything is gonna land at the end, but what, what's your expectation for what 2023 is gonna look like?

Speaker 2 [09:29] That's a, a wonderful question, um. And like, seriously, one week, it would be a lot easier. One week in the future after this settles out the next few days it would be a lot easier to answer, um, but I do think the Brewers Guild needs to do some soul searching on, you know, what is our strategy going to be going forward, what are the major issues we're going to be pushing for, but more importantly, how are we gonna do it because we've seen. Especially this session, mixed success in doing so and I think we need to be again building really deeper relationships with our local legislators to be able to do it.

Justin Kendall [10:09] Well, Sam, thanks for the quick rundown. This is why we do it. This is why, you know, we do brewox is to help support the guild. So thanks for the time, man.

Speaker 2 [10:19] Thank you very much.