Shipping homebrew in kegs

A friend of my wife is having his wedding in November in Maryland (where their families are, they live in California) and said he was planning on shipping his homebrew in kegs but saw something that said he needed a license to ship alcohol into Maryland. I used to live in Maryland so I don't have any experience in shipping beer there but I've heard of guys shipping beer in kegs cross-country for the NHC, etc.

Any ideas? Carriers (obviously not USPS)? Alternately I was thinking he could just ship it to me and I could *ahem* arrange for it to get to the wedding somehow.

You mean shipping "Yeast samples"!!!! A brewer I worked with shipped a growler to his dad every now and then. He used a large insulated white labs box and put Careful Yeast Specimen on the box. They just need to have a reference for what it might be in case it spills. Still, that is what unfiltered home brew is.

Fedex will ship alcohol, but you just have to make sure that it is legal to ship beer to the state that you are shipping it to. For instance, MA you can send wine but not beer. I am not sure what maryland's laws are on this.

That's a heavy package...Not sure it would be worth it to me to pay the shipping on that.

thedude123 said:

Fedex will ship alcohol, but you just have to make sure that it is legal to ship beer to the state that you are shipping it to. For instance, MA you can send wine but not beer. I am not sure what maryland's laws are on this.

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http://fedex.com/us/wine/index.html
"FedEx provides access to alcohol shipping services for approved customers wishing FedEx to transport between Licensee to Licensee or Licensee to Consumer"

They don't have beer specific language but I would imagine they apply the paragraph above to beer in addition to wine (or maybe not considering the specific legislation permitting wine shipments). They do not allow unlicensed parties to ship alcohol. If you know otherwise, point me in the right direction.

My FexEx place operates on the don't ask, don't tell policy.

I know that Fedex doesn't have a policy on beer but States do. For instance you can not be in a beer of the month club in MA but you can be in a wine of the month club.

It would make sense that fedex would only send alcohol from a licensed person. I just know that when i send things fedex from work there is an alcohol tab that i can select.

Aren't you concerned that the keg will leak or anything? That seems very risky to me. I'd bottle it, personally.

carnevoodoo said:

Aren't you concerned that the keg will leak or anything? That seems very risky to me. I'd bottle it, personally.

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It all depends on how much he's trying to send, and I haven't gotten that from him yet. Bottles run the risk of breaking, so it seems six of one/half dozen of the other to me. As long as a keg had a good seal, I don't think it would be an issue as long as it was packaged well. When the NHC was in Baltimore in 2005, we had some guys ship kegs in without issue. Can't remember how they did it though.

that seems risky to me too...ship it to a state that is close to maryland (northern VA) or something like that. Then go drive and pick it up..seems like a little trouble though

FireBrewer said:

It all depends on how much he's trying to send, and I haven't gotten that from him yet. Bottles run the risk of breaking, so it seems six of one/half dozen of the other to me. As long as a keg had a good seal, I don't think it would be an issue as long as it was packaged well. When the NHC was in Baltimore in 2005, we had some guys ship kegs in without issue. Can't remember how they did it though.

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Yeah. I was just thinking a couple of broken bottles is far less disastrous than an emptied keg. I am just trying to think of how I'd make sure the top couldn't pop off. I think I have a couple of ideas, but I'm hoping someone who has done this chimes in.

carnevoodoo said:

Yeah. I was just thinking a couple of broken bottles is far less disastrous than an emptied keg. I am just trying to think of how I'd make sure the top couldn't pop off. I think I have a couple of ideas, but I'm hoping someone who has done this chimes in.

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This is true and I do appreciate the thoughts.

Seems like I'm doing all the leg work on this for him...hmmmm...he'd better save me some damn homebrew.