moxie

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I get as much out of home brewing in sharing my brews with friends in family as I do drinking it, so whenever I travel down to the US to visit family, I have a couple of growlers of homebrew with me. I've never really given it a second thought, but I thought I would ask you guys this time around since I am taking a considerable amount down with me this time. It would really suck to have it confiscated on me!

Zamial

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Doing this is 100% illegal. I would claim it to be anything other than beer, if it was in growlers. That being said you would be better to bottle up 2 cases of red strip bottles (label is painted on) with red caps and cross with that then the growlers.

__________________
“I'm not drunk, I'm from Wisconsin.”
We have been out drinking your state since 1848!

steinsato

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The last two times I crossed into Canada they completely emptied and searched my truck. Probably because I looked like a dirty hippy at the time. They confiscated all of our firewood but left the booze and beer alone. These weren't homebrews though and this was way back in 2004. I wonder if they'd leave it alone if you bottled it in bottles that still had the original breweries name on them?

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"The ordinary world is only the foam on top of the real world." Tom Robbins (B is for Beer)
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moxie

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Wow, I had no idea it was illegal. I expected there to be some sort of limit, but illegal? Wow. My family down there raises some animals for meat, so I am usually travelling down with some homebrew, then returning with about 80 pounds of frozen meat. I have looked into the meat part, which is fine so long as it is "packaged for sale." They don't raise them to sell, but they are packed properly, never had a problem with it. Like I said, I didn't give the homebrew a second thought, I just threw it in a box with some interesting commercial brews I've come across.

moxie

Recipes 

Actually, now that I think of it, I once crossed with a full corny.

The only thing I've ever had confiscated was a few Clementine oranges.

JRems

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I think the easiest way would be to put it in commercial bottles that still have the labels. I think it's 1 case per person.

krebs119

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Agreed - you ARE allowed to bring commercial beer across the border. I had to look it up, but this looks about accurate:

http://gocanada.about.com/od/faqscrossingtheborde1/p/duty_free.htm

That's going the other way, but I wouldn't doubt it's the same for the way you're going. I'd have to agree that the red stripe bottle idea would work well. HOORAY BEER!

Zymurg

Recipes 

While all the suggestions regarding repackaging your homebrew in commercial beer bottles are good ones, and will likely work, if you should be caught transporting homemade alcohol into the United States - what is the worst case here?

Confiscation and some kind of criminal charge having to do with attempting to illegally transport a controlled substance into the United States? I think they call that "Bootlegging".

The border guards I've met haven't got a lot of sense of humour and I wouldn't fancy being barred from further entry to the US because I wanted my American friends to taste my Nut Brown Ale.

It would be great to know if there is a legal way to bring 2 cornys with me across the border.