Selling wort

Had a idea run through my head last night and thought I would share.

Some people around here have shown an interest in selling their beer. Federal and State laws make this difficult for the hobbyists among us, but they don't call me Captain Loophole for nothing. Hear me out.

As this would only work locally, I have no qualms with sharing the idea.

The federal and state laws deal with selling alcohol. I am not going to sell alcohol. I am going to sell wort and rent you space to make it into beer.

I sell you the wort and you pitch the yeast. You rent space from me to store YOUR fermenting wort and you pick up YOUR beer when it's finished. Of course they will be a fee for the wort, rental fee and packaging fee but you get custom made beer just for you. Not trying to say that it would be a big money maker but you could start getting your craft into the hands of people willing to pay for it without dealing with liquor laws.

Sounds good to me. Kinda like one of those brew it yourself places though.

Isn't that basically how the brew-on-premises places work?

Not sure exactly. Do those places need a license?

Not only is it a brew on premises business, but it would likely violate the brew on premises license requirements.

Yes, those businesses need a license. They also likely need to pass health and safety inspections, so you can't do it out of your kitchen/basement/bathroom/etc.

Yes they need a license, they are making alcohol. The pump and dump brewpubs (and I use that term loosly) get a BOP license and it has been a proceedure used by many start-ups in areas where a liquor license is difficult or impossible to get.

Depends on the state requirements. You could call OLCC?

stick it to the man and do it anyway!


but seriously don't do that.

There's good advise right there!

Then forget about ever getting a brewing license after being prosecuted for OLCC violations.

My LHBS had to get a licence to have brewing classes and let people use the facilities. Also any that attends those classes has to get a $15 home brew license.

Of couse we are in NJ which has more laws than any place I have ever lived.

Not sure if I would even notify the OLCC. Again, I am not making or selling alcohol.

They also likely need to pass health and safety inspections, so you can't do it out of your kitchen/basement/bathroom/etc.

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Many, many home kitchens are certified to make food. Just need to pass an inspection.

BendBrewer said:

Again, I am not making or selling alcohol.

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Looks to me like you would be producing and selling an alcoholic beverage. You would be providing the equipment, producing the wort, monitoring the fermentation, and packaging the final product. Why does it matter that someone else performs one step in the production process (pitching the yeast)?

What's that saying? Possession is 9/10 of the law.....

Why not just sell Malt Tea. Then if someone wants to take it home and pitch and package they are making the alcohol.

If you are doing it in your home with no license, not only do you risk health code violations, but you likely risk violating both federal and state laws related to selling beer you are making in your home.

Even with a BOP license, or the OR equivalent, you typically cannot assist in fermenting or packaging the beer. Under TTB rules, you cannot even touch a bottle that is getting filled. If you are making the wort on your own and handing people a vial of yeast to pitch, you may not be able to prove you are within the BOP requirements as much as you are somebody just trying to create a loophole that doesn't exist in the law.

The only way I could see this working is if you sell just the wort. It would be up to the customer to ferment, but then again, some states require homebrew permits.

I think you would be better selling the wort, in a home depot/lowes $2 bucket and a yeast package for them to pitch on their own when they got home. Not sure how they would bottle, but that would at least seem to make it more legal. Of course you appear to be in OR which is a bit looser on these things than some other states.

Considering that fermentation is 9/10ths of the final result, I don't think you'd have very happy customers if you just sold wort.

slinky0390 said:

The only way I could see this working is if you sell just the wort. It would be up to the customer to ferment, but then again, some states require homebrew permits.

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really? Do you have anything showing which states? Iowa is pretty strict, and it may be of concern to me.

Some things to consider about selling wort...

You may need to pass local health codes to sell a food product. While many people sell other food products out of their house, anything alcohol-related is sure to throw up more red flags by the nature of the product.

In spite of not fermenting it, your state laws may be interpreted to include that activity, without a license, as violating the liquor laws. Defending yourself from a penalty could still run in the thousands.

There are various liabilities you take on anytime you hold yourself out as a merchant of a particular product. Imagine the customer that buys your tub of wort and leaves it sealed up, warm, in their garage and forgets about it for a few weeks. They come back around and find it and take a sip. Well, that might not be a problem except it may be infected with e. coli (and almost assuredly it will), various other bacteria and if the environment in the bucket became anaerobic, botulism. Do you want to pay for the medical expenses -- out of your own pocket? Although extreme, you could consider the more likely situation that somebody takes your bucket of wort in the car, the lid pops off and floods their car with sticky liquid that will take hours of detailing to remove. Again, want to pay for all that?



I'm not saying that there may not be a way to do what you are looking at, but you can't just think you've found a secret loophole in the law to exploit and there aren't consequences or other considerations.

Even if you found a way to make it all legal, I can't see to many people going for it.

Buy 5 gallons of liquid, then have to keep it sanitary and at proper temp for weeks and then go through bottling and carbonation and then wait weeks more for the beer?

99.9% of people would rather just go and buy beer.

What about showing others how to brew? As a fundraiser where a small donation is asked, they bring their own supplies (kits)? I can't find information on the specific law for California.

beergolf said:

Of couse we are in NJ which has more laws than any place I have ever lived.

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Well, there's your problem right there.

Geography and bad choices aside, isn't pre-hopped LME essentially dehydrated wort? And goesn't Goya make a "soft drink" called Malta that's essentially unfermented wort?

BendBrewer said:

The federal and state laws deal with selling alcohol. I am not going to sell alcohol. I am going to sell wort and rent you space to make it into beer.

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The laws also deal with the production of alcohol, which is what you are doing.

There is no such loophole.
https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrewing-rights/statutes/

Section titled "Federal Law" said:

On October 14, 1978, President Jimmy Carter signed H.R. 1337, which contained an amendment sponsored by Senator Alan Cranston (D-CA) creating an exemption from taxation of beer brewed at home for personal or family use. This exemption went into effect on February 1, 1979, making homebrewing legal on a federal level in the U.S.

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Making beer at home was not legal until it was made legal within specific parameters. Note the "for personal or family use" stipulation. There is no way to produce beer at home for sale commercially.

Nateo said:

Isn't that basically how the brew-on-premises places work?

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Exactly how they work

And before 1978 many families did it anyway! I know my grandpa did!

TallDan said:

The laws also deal with the production of alcohol, which is what you are doing.

There is no such loophole.
https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/homebrewing-rights/statutes/

Making beer at home was not legal until it was made legal within specific parameters. Note the "for personal or family use" stipulation. There is no way to produce beer at home for sale commercially.

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ethalfrida said:

What about showing others how to brew? As a fundraiser where a small donation is asked, they bring their own supplies (kits)? I can't find information on the specific law for California.

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Totally legal. You aren't selling alcohol you are teaching them how to brew.

@ethalfrida
LOL, next time consider starting your own thread rather than hijacking one from 2011
You will get better responses.

I don't understand how what he is proposing is any different from, say, my friend handing me money, me going shopping for ingredients, me brewing, then me handing them finished beer. If all they are paying for is the ingredients plus a bit for my time, I don't see the illegality of it. I'm not a lawyer but I DID play one in my head once. YMMV.

RPh_Guy said:

@ethalfrida
LOL, next time consider starting your own thread rather than hijacking one from 2011
You will get better responses.

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UGH, and I saw the thread and replied to the 2011 OP.

seatazzz said:

I don't understand how what he is proposing is any different from, say, my friend handing me money, me going shopping for ingredients, me brewing, then me handing them finished beer. If all they are paying for is the ingredients plus a bit for my time, I don't see the illegality of it. I'm not a lawyer but I DID play one in my head once. YMMV.

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You are trying to look at this logically. That isn't how governments and laws work -- you can't apply analytical logic.

Imagine that the law was written by a 2nd grade class where they were all given sugar and caffeine, then blurted out ideas while the teacher wrote them down -- presto, you have the law.

"It's not about right or wrong or virtue, it's about the law and your ability to win a reasoned argument based solely on an interpretation thereof"

Author unknown. But it stuck in my head.

TallDan said:

UGH, and I saw the thread and replied to the 2011 OP.

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Yeah he's probably in jail now so don't expect a response. Long live Captain Loophole!

RPh_Guy said:

Yeah he's probably in jail now so don't expect a response. Long live Captain Loophole!

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Or moved up from illegally producing alcohol to illegally producing meth. Might as well go for better profit margins, there is no BMC keeping prices down in that market.

Does homeexplosiontalk.com have their own “true meth” and “sewage in my meth tub” threads?

TallDan said:

Or moved up from illegally producing alcohol to illegally producing meth. Might as well go for better profit margins, there is no BMC keeping prices down in that market.

Does homeexplosiontalk.com have their own “true meth” and “sewage in my meth tub” threads?

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Do you STILL use Sudafed in your meth???