Facebook Group: Friends of Texas Microbreweries

A Facebook group was started some time time ago named Friends of Texas Microbreweries. (UPDATE: The group has since changed its name to Texas Microbrewery Advocates.) It's not the same group as the lobbying organization that pushed in 2006 for legalization of on-site brewery sales, but it's named after it and "inspired" by it. Now that everyone and their dog is joining Facebook, it's starting to serve as a meeting place for supporters of this year's push to support on-site sales – specifically, House Bill 1062 and Senate Bill 754. Go join up if you haven't already.

Microbrewery bill probably dead

The bill in the Texas Legislature that would allow microbrewers to sell their product on the premises of their breweries appears to be dead. I don't know why this seemingly sensible idea never got any traction — after all, wineries are allowed to sell their product on-site, so why discriminate against beer?

Actually, there are two bills, although they are word-for-word identical, just with different authors listed. (I'm not sure why they do this; I'm sure it makes some kind of sense in the Bizarro World of lawmaking.) But both House Bill 1926 by Houston's Jessica Farrar and HB 2647 by Dripping Springs' Patrick Rose were referred to the Licensing and Administrative Procedures Committee on Feb. 28 and March 13, respectively, and have been stuck there ever since. In theoretical fantasy world, it is still technically possible for the bills to move through the process and become law, but the legislative session ends on May 28, and anyone who watches the Lege knows that any bills that haven't emerged from committee at this late date probably never will. Even Friends of Texas Microbreweries seems to have given up – their blog hasn't been updated since January.

It's so sad. I'm sure on-site sales will happen eventually, but now it will be 2008 at the earliest, as the Texas Lege only meets every other year.

UPDATE: In my similarly worded report on this for The Austin Chronicle, Saint Arnold's Brock Wagner agrees with what Karla says about beer distributors in the comments section.