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After years of watching successful brewpubs evolve into larger brewing operations, a brewery in Texas is doing just the opposite…And there’s all kinds of smart reasons they’ve taken what might seem a counter-intuitive path!
For the last four years Hops & Grain one of Austin’s most successful craft breweries has been trying to shed the limitations that come with owning a beer manufacturing permit in Texas, by becoming a brewpub that can sell directly to their fans.
Texas’ post prohibition legislation is somewhat archaic, and although changes have been made over the last decade, its liquor laws can b obtuse especially for mid-sized craft breweries like Hop & Grain.
As things stands now Texas breweries are either ‘permitted’ as manufacturers or as brewpubs and each categorization comes with positives and negatives.
A Manufacturing Permit allows the brewery to produce as much beer as they want, but denies them the ability to sell beer ‘to go’ directly to their fans.
A Brewpub Permit limits the brewery’s production to making no more than 10,000 barrels of beer (per licensed location) but DOES allow that same operator to sell beer ‘to go’ from the brewery.
When Hops & Grain Brewing opened its doors in 2011 manufacturing breweries weren’t even allowed to sell beer for on-site consumption, much less selling beer to go. They operated a small tasting room back then where we gave away free samples and sold merchandise to spread the word but that was it.
In the 2013 Texas passed a package of bills that finally allowed manufacturing breweries to sell a small amount of beer directly to customers for on-site consumption only…but those same production breweries still weren’t able to sell beer ‘to go’ from their breweries…
And that’s when Hops’ & Grain decided it would be smarter (and more economically advantageous) for them to ditch their manufacturing permit, and work to secure brewpub status which would allow them to sell directly to their fans.
After all the brewery had already reached their maxed-out 9,000 barrel capacity, so why not go for it license themselves as a brewpub?
They then embarked on what would become four year bureaucratic journey that according to Hops & Josh, came to a successful end in December, when they were finally granted a brewpub permit.
And amazingly in addition to now being able to sell beer ‘to go’ at their brewery, Hops & Grain’s current distribution footprint remains unchanged in their new brewpub status.
The brewery will have to keep their yearly beer volume under that 10,000 barrel cap (they’re good with that), but in addition to operating their tasting room seven days a week, they can continue to expand their distribution footprint in Texas as they see fit…
Hops & Grain has also announced plans to open a new operation in San Marcos, Texas, and this time around they insist that it’s going to be a brewpub from the start.
And really…why the hell not?
