Legal question- not sure where to post

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Cap'n Jewbeard

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Please move this if it's improperly located:

I know it's very not-legal to sell homebrews without a license, but I have a query: Is it allright if my friends give me money, ahead of time, to cover costs of the ingredients? Essentially, they're buying me the ingredients so that I can THEN make the wine/beer/mead.

Is that okay? I haven't done that yet, I wanted to consult the better wisdom of my peers.
 
I'm sure your not going to make a continual habit of this so see no harm in what you are doing. Also, no profits are being made which is where uncle sam always wants a slice from you.
 
Okay, very good- yeah, it's like "Hey, grad student. Likes to brew, but the initial lay-out is expensive. So, friends can help me out, and we all enjoy the fruits of said labor." Definitely no profit involved.

Also, nice one with Hans Gruber. Rickman is a bad-ass. Actually, I'd kind of like to see Rickman and Jeremy Irons in some sort of, like, sarcastic/ironic Stare-Down. It would rule so much.
 
P funky said:
Please move this if it's improperly located:

I know it's very not-legal to sell homebrews without a license, but I have a query: Is it allright if my friends give me money, ahead of time, to cover costs of the ingredients? Essentially, they're buying me the ingredients so that I can THEN make the wine/beer/mead.

Is that okay? I haven't done that yet, I wanted to consult the better wisdom of my peers.

Unless your friends are cops, judges, or puritans you should be allright...your really getting screwed by selling it at cost though. If some one gave me 20 bucks to brew them 5 gallons of beer id tell them to go screw themselves. Now 100 bucks, or 5x cost is more like it!
 
If they buy the ingredients and hire you to cook it all together for them, you're really not selling them anything other than your time. You never own the concoction, it's just temporarily in your possession.

Not even really an issue, now is it? If you went to a football game or concert and sold beers out of a cooler in a lot, THAT would be illegal.
 
Bjorn Borg said:
Unless your friends are cops, judges, or puritans you should be allright...your really getting screwed by selling it at cost though. If some one gave me 20 bucks to brew them 5 gallons of beer id tell them to go screw themselves. Now 100 bucks, or 5x cost is more like it!

$1.50 per 12/oz bottle sounds fair for good friends, $2.00 - $2.50 for others, depending on the type and the quality. If you yield about 45 bottles, that's about a $40 profit, minimally. They'd expect to pay $9.00 per 6er for a really good, obscure variety in the liquor store. For the $1.50 price, I'd ask them to rinse out the bottles and return them all.

Alternatively, you could sell 22oz bottles for about $5.00. That was always the price of a Sammy Smith oatmeal in the parking lot of a Phish show, and those guys were always in business.
 
Selling homebrew is illegal here in any quantity. You can completely avoid the problem by having them help do the brewing. If they buy the ingerdients, are present during the brewing and help bottle, it's their beer and comes out of their annual allowance. If they provide the food as well, everybody is happy.
 
P funky said:
Also, nice one with Hans Gruber. Rickman is a bad-ass. Actually, I'd kind of like to see Rickman and Jeremy Irons in some sort of, like, sarcastic/ironic Stare-Down. It would rule so much.

Christopher Walken would lay the smack-down on both those punks!

:p
 
david_42 said:
Selling homebrew is illegal here in any quantity. You can completely avoid the problem by having them help do the brewing. If they buy the ingerdients, are present during the brewing and help bottle, it's their beer and comes out of their annual allowance. If they provide the food as well, everybody is happy.
...set it up like a coffee fund at work...everyone chips in to work/brew and drink on the premises...:D :drunk:
 
homebrewer_99 said:
...set it up like a coffee fund at work...everyone chips in to work/brew and drink on the premises...:D :drunk:

I can't seem to sell my manager on this idea. I tell him we will be calmer and more productive but still we are limited to a 12 pack for four of us only on weekends. Damn policies.
 
The local BATF guy told me that homebrew is to be made in one's own home, consumed in one's own home and never taken from one's own home. In this reading of the law, by the guy who enforces it, you can't brew with anybody else if they plan to take it with them.

He also said he is too concerned with tobacco and firearms to ever worry about homebrewers.
 
I went to a winery shop where they would sell you the ingreedients and you had to pitch the yeast yourself... other than that, they did everything including the aging and bottling. Of course, the 'storage' was very expensive :tank:
 
Brewpastor said:
The local BATF guy told me that homebrew is to be made in one's own home, consumed in one's own home and never taken from one's own home. In this reading of the law, by the guy who enforces it, you can't brew with anybody else if they plan to take it with them.

He also said he is too concerned with tobacco and firearms to ever worry about homebrewers.

That's the absolute worse guy to invite to a party. Somehow I was in a party group for a while and there was a cop that would be at the same parties I was at. He and I didn't get along very well because of a night where he decided to give me a sobriety test in front of everyone and had the nerve to say I failed! I had only drank 10 beers. Jerk.
 
DyerNeedOfBeer said:
I went to a winery shop where they would sell you the ingreedients and you had to pitch the yeast yourself... other than that, they did everything including the aging and bottling. Of course, the 'storage' was very expensive :tank:


This is a huge industry in British Columbia, thay call them 'You brew' shops. They have all the nice equipment and facilities, and all you have to do is pitch the yeast and bottle it. A guy used to have a you brew next to SWMBO's Dad's shop and we got in pretty tight with him. He would do all sorts of clone brews for us, he even made use a batch of tequila wine-coolers that were out of this world (or so I heard :drunk: ) That was all before I brewed, so now I gotta get back out there and talk to that guy...
 
Oh my, I've been looking for an excuse to go up to B.C.. That could be it, then.

Thanks, by the way, to everyone who responded in this thread. It's very definitely illuminating.
 
Well since you are not actually selling them the beer but instead asking them all to put in some money to pay for the ingredients then i dont see why not.
 
If it's anything like flying it's probably OK. As a private pilot, I can carry passengers, and they can share expenses. I just can't make a profit without a commercial license.
 
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