Legal Question - Barrel aging license?

[foodplusbeer]

Here's an odd legal scenario I've been pondering lately, wondering what your thoughts are...

From what I understand, wort is legally considered beer when the yeast is pitched. So let's say you contract with a brewery and purchase "beer" the moment the yeast is pitched. Could you finish fermenting the beer in your own facility? Then bottle and sell the product? Does this legally qualify you as a distributor, and not a manufacturer?

Alternatively, if you purchased fully fermented beer, could you barrel age it, and bottle it in your own facility? Again, what does that make you? I suppose you could even just purchase fresh barrels of beer, and just wait to package?

Here's a snippet I found in the Connecticut Liquor Control Act

A wholesaler permit shall allow the bottling of alcoholic liquor and the wholesale sale of alcoholic liquor

 

[ImNoExpert]

It depends on your state but simply adding yeast doesn't make wort an alcoholic beverage until it is above .5 % ABV. If you bought wort and fermented it, I would guess that you would have to be permitted/licensed as a brewer.

Buying beer and then repackaging into say, a growler? That's retail and requires those permits/licenses. Some states specifically define the size of a growler and what is and not allowed to be considered a growler.

A beer wholesaler or distributor in my state is only allowed to sell to retailers and other wholesalers beer in its original packaging.

 

[brick_haus]

Sorry, but I cant help from noticing the irony of ImNoExpert giving legal advice...carry on...

 

[mongoose33]

I'm thinking the best source of information on this might be the Connecticut Liquor Control Board, or similar.

 

[ericbw]

I don't know about the legal aspect, but the business aspect doesn't make a lot of sense. You would be better off working with the brewery as a partner to brew the beer, then let you age it at their facility, then package it and sell through their licenses (to a distributor or to customers in a tasting room).

 

[foodplusbeer]

I was more just curious than anything. I guess for the barrel house concept to be effective you'd need to assume that your contract brewer had beer production capacity, but not fermentation capacity or storage space (probably more common than you think - takes hours to make the wort, weeks to ferment).

It would particularly interesting for sour ale production, which has a very long aging time. Most of the work there is all done post wort production.

 

[Siberian]

You are better off contract brewing wort, transporting it in a tanker truck, transferring to stainless, pitching, then running off to barrels for secondary.

Both The Rare Barrel and Mystic Brewery do this among others.

You'd license as a brewery same as one with a full system but could get away with one stainless conical to start (ideally equal in volume to a large tanker truck).