Beer Bills Go Before House Tomorrow

Hey craft beer drinkers, in case you haven’t heard the news, SB 515, 516, 517, 518 & 639, a package of craft beer bills that would allow production breweries to sell beer on-site and brewpubs to distribute beer off premise, will go before the Texas House of Representatives tomorrow, Friday May 17.

Having already passed the Senate in March, if the House passes these bills tomorrow, all it will take is Governor Perry’s signature for them to be passed into law, and go into effect on September 1 of this year.

An economic impact study conducted last year found that Texas craft breweries had a $608 million impact on the Texas economy in 2011. The same study found that if measures like the ones outlined in these bills go into effect (like the right for production breweries to be able to sell beer directly to consumers on-site, the right for brewpubs to be able to sell their beer off-premise, etc.) that Texas’ craft beer industry could actually have more like a $ 5.6 billion impact on the Texas economy. That’s a lot of beer money.

If you are not familiar with SB 515, 516, 517, 518 & 639, you can visit the Open the Taps website and/or this Austin Post article for all the details.

Now, in the spirit of grasping for any semblance of control a representative Democracy, if these bills are important to you, please consider calling or emailing your Texas House Representative to ask for their support tomorrow. If you don’t know who your House Rep is, you can find them here.

If all goes well, hopefully we’ll be having a big ol’ cross-city toast in the (512) tomorrow night!

-Caroline