Shipping Beer

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

tjstromquist

Active Member
Joined
Oct 11, 2005
Messages
26
Reaction score
0
I am going to need to ship some beer for Christmas for gifts. Anyone have any good tips on the best way to accomplish this? I will be sending about 3-4 six packs of bottles from Minnesota to Mississippi
 
pack it up well (bubble wrap) and take it to one of those "shipping" stores that accept packages for the major companies (FedEx, UPS, DHL, etc.)

Technically, you are not allowed to ship alcohol, but if you take it to one of those drop-off places, the chances of someone discovering that you have beer in it is probably minimized since the shipper probably won't scan/x-ray a collection of 100 packages that they picked up at "Bob's Ship-It Store".

-walker
 
This advice from the AHA: "Live yeast samples, for analysis only."

Bubble wrap each bottle. It's a pain, but the only practical approach.
 
I thought it was only illegal to ship alcohol by USPS? I was under the impression that UPS, FedEx, and other non-governmental mail services were not affected by that law. :confused:
 
It's mostly a policy thing rather than a law thing... caused by an extremely messy law thing. There's not 1 federal law on shipping alcohol (well, there may be a statute or regulation forbidding the USPS from doing it, but not private shippers), but there IS a patchwork of state laws that affect all carriers. So it's really up to the source and (especially) the destination states as to whether anyone may ship alcohol in that state. As a result, most carriers don't bother with the hassle and just forbid it by policy.

There was a supreme court case last term that should have fixed this problem but all they really said was that any rule applying to out-of-state shippers must also apply to in-state shippers; as a result, most states w/o prominent local wineries will forbid shipping alcohol because of the powerful lobby of distributors, whose profits would be affected.

If you want to determine the actual legality of it, maybe track down a local winery and ask how they deal with shipping to the various target states (in your case, Mississippi). I didn't ship anything home when I visited Napa Valley, so my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I think the shippers are a bit more relaxed, for whatever reason, if the sender's name is the same as the name at the destination. So... take that for what it's worth.

EDIT: Ah, here's a page that summarizes the various laws. It is not a lawyer, but it says that mississippi is right out :(
http://www.wineintro.com/basics/shipping/

dancingbarefoot said:
I thought it was only illegal to ship alcohol by USPS? I was under the impression that UPS, FedEx, and other non-governmental mail services were not affected by that law. :confused:
 
dancingbarefoot said:
I thought it was only illegal to ship alcohol by USPS? I was under the impression that UPS, FedEx, and other non-governmental mail services were not affected by that law. :confused:

I had looked into this a couple months ago after starting a thread to see if anyone was interested in swapping homebrews. What I found after only a half hour's searching was that you (technically) needed a distributer's license to send anything across state lines, regardless of who the carrier was.

If sending the package INTRA-state, you could use anyone other than the USPS with no issues.

But, I think the rules are meant to catch big-time shippers, and not the little homebrewer sending a 6 pack to his buddy.

-walker
 
What a legal mess! :rolleyes:

I just know every time I go to the post office at home (in Alaska), there's a huge poster about how it's illegal to mail alcohol. Probably because they have so many problems with people trying to mail booze to the dry villages. (And the other guys don't ship to remote Alaskan villages. "You want next day delivery to where? Shaktoolik?!")

Good thing I don't need to mail beer anytime soon. ;)
 
DeRoux's Broux said:
your a long way from home! good thing you don't have to ship any beer.....geez!

Yeah, I'm in Houston going to grad school. Looong way from home.

I *wanted* to put up a few brews at home in Alaska this summer, but then I'd have to abandon them. Can't mail 'em, and can't drive through Canada with quite that much booze. (I think the limit is two gallons per person, if I'm remembering right.)

So I waited and started once I got here. Now I'm just about to have a first tap party. ;)
 
dancingbarefoot said:
Yeah, I'm in Houston going to grad school. Looong way from home.

So I waited and started once I got here. Now I'm just about to have a first tap party. ;)
Hey dbf, you at Rice?

Grad student tap party...those were the days. :cool:
 
El Pistolero said:
Hey dbf, you at Rice?

Grad student tap party...those were the days. :cool:

I sure am. I get a lot of crap from other students for brewing my own when our very own campus grad student bar (appropriately named Valhalla!) serves 75-cent beers. But tough! More for me, then, and none for the whiners. :D
 
well, if you run out, there's always Two Row's and the Ginger Man next door!
i'd like to try some of the Smoked Porter from Alaska. everyone say's it's awesome.....
 
You might want to consider the way that the beer may be shipped (if possible). If you ship using air then you may have a problem if the cabin is not pressurized. I had a bottle in a suitcase coming back from japan. The bottle burst in my suitcase because the storage cabin was not pressurized. I would recommend shipping ground. ;)
 
same thing happend to my brother one time coming back from Germany. forgot to move it to his carry-on when he packed to leave!
 
Last night I received a poster in the mail in one of those mailing tubes, very sturdy and about 4.5" in diameter. Occured to me that it would be perfect for bubblewrapping and packing 2-3 bottles of homebrew with foam in between each bottle for exchanges/contests.
 
yup... those should work great. I've got a half dozen of them in the garage that I kept after me moved, and I'm packing one of them up tonight with a few bottles and sending it to Cheesefood.

-walker
 
DeRoux's Broux said:
well, if you run out, there's always Two Row's and the Ginger Man next door!

Believe it or not, never been to Ginger Man. But Two Rows is great!

DeRoux's Broux said:
i'd like to try some of the Smoked Porter from Alaska. everyone say's it's awesome.....

Smoked Porter... mmmmm. I like their oatmeal stout, too.

If you're ever in Alaska, check out Moose's Tooth (in Anchorage). They make some great beer, and their first tap parties are a riot! :drunk:
 
oh, you gota hit the Ginger Man. great pub atmosphere and at least 60 brews on tap.

well, i probably won't ever make to Alaska, but if i do, i be sure to hit the Moose's Tooth!
 
DeRoux's Broux said:
well, if you run out, there's always Two Row's and the Ginger Man next door!
i'd like to try some of the Smoked Porter from Alaska. everyone say's it's awesome.....
Wasn't a clone for the smoked porter in the byo edition with "10 Clones from the Dark Side"? It intrigued me, but I wasn't enthralled with the idea of smoking my own grains.
 
i think so? i had a clone at my local HBS one time, and it was good. just don't think i'd want 5 gallons of it? seems like it would go good w/ BBQ.....
 
Walker said:
yup... those should work great. I've got a half dozen of them in the garage that I kept after me moved, and I'm packing one of them up tonight with a few bottles and sending it to Cheesefood.

-walker

Sweet! I'll send yours out soon as well. I'm drinking Voodoo's ale tonight, I'll drink Walker's next week. Then I get to try my Wit. (I might actually try a Wit tonight since it's ben bottled just about a week).
 
Cheesefood said:
Sweet! I'll send yours out soon as well. I'm drinking Voodoo's ale tonight, I'll drink Walker's next week. Then I get to try my Wit. (I might actually try a Wit tonight since it's ben bottled just about a week).

Hey, Cheesey...

I'm actually sending you 4 bottles; IPA, Stout, Pandora, and Gruagach. The first two can be consumed immediately, but the last two have only been bottled for about a week, so you'll have to let them condition for another couple of weeks before popping them open.

I have no idea what that IPA is going to taste like at this point. Excluding the three bottles I have reserved for you and a couple friends in Cincinnati, I've been out of it for a few weeks and haven't had one myself in a while. :)

The stout tastes great (IMO) and has a nice head if you pour it right, but the head doesn't stick around long enough for me (need some wheat or more carapils). The brew is SO thick ([email protected]), it feels like it's not well carbonated, so the experience is much better when you drink it with the head in-tact. I suggest pouring half the bottle, drinking, and then pouring the other half to get a fresh head and drinking again.

No idea what the other two will turn out like (tasted good at bottling time), so I hope they are enjoyable.

I'll try to ship everything out this weekend.

-walker
 
I moved here from Anchorage, Alaska. I know what you mean. I made the mistake of packing some clothes in an old vodka case cardboard box going to Barrow, it was stopped and searched of course.
 
Back
Top