American Craft Beer The Best Craft Beer, Breweries, Bars, Brewpubs, Beer Stores, And Restaurants Serving Serious Beer.
The beer biz never sleeps at American Craft Beer. And here’s some more of what’s been happening in the beer world, while you were drinking yourself through a mid-June weekend.
Is Big Beer Pushing Craft Out Of Florida’s Dominant Grocery Store Chain? (Tampa, FL) – According to the Florida Brewers Guild, Publix (who own 787 grocery stores in the Sunshine State) cut its craft beer section in half to 8 feet, freeing up more space for Big Beer brands such as Budweiser, Bud Light and Corona and allocating less space for smaller independent craft breweries.
Florida craft beer staples “like Cigar City, Tampa Bay Brewing and Coppertail are among the remaining beers in area stores, while breweries such as Gainesville’s Swamp Head and Bradenton’s Motorworks have had their stock cut completely,” reports the Tampa Bay Times.
The Brewers Association, craft beer’s leading trade organization, has reported that its members have started seeing craft beer brands being “pulled from grocery chains and replaced by the once-independent craft brands that massive beer companies bought out.”
Words To Drink By (Gainesville, FL) “They’re blatantly removing Florida craft {products} and replacing them with beers purchased by these big guys.” – Joshua Aubuchon, attorney / Florida Brewers Guild
Texas Craft Breweries Form Political Action Pac To Change Beer Laws (Austin, TX) – In an effort to further combat what they call ‘state’s broken beer laws,” the Texas Craft Brewers Guild have created an additional Political Action Committee, to lobby lawmakers.
CraftPac is dedicated to championing job growth, entrepreneurship, beer tourism, consumer freedom and to mobilizing the whole Texas craft brewing industry and its community of fans to stand up for fixing the state’s beer laws.
Words To Drink By (Austin, TX) – “Texas is actually the only state in our nation that doesn’t allow breweries to sell beer to go. One of the major goals with Craft PAC with the next Texas legislative session is to change that.” K.D. Hill, Barrow Brewing and CraftPac member
Publix banner image credit: Felix Mizioznikov / Shutterstock.com
