California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a myriad of bills Friday before the end of the 2021-2022 legislative sessions, including an update to two laws that give more flexibility to craft brewers in the state by expanding the number of satellite taprooms and allowing distribution of their own products to retail locations nearby.
“We just want our brewers to feel that the sky’s the limit on what they can achieve,” California Craft Brewers Association (CCBA) executive director Lori Ajax said in a statement to Brewbound following the signing of both bills. “We are grateful that the governor supports these small businesses and signed AB 2301 and AB 2307.”
The first bill (AB 2307) increases the number of satellite taprooms beer manufacturers can have from six to eight, with the caveat that the license holder must hold its sixth duplicate license for at least one year before it can receive the additional two licenses. The bill also doubles the maximum number of bona fide eating places allowed, such as restaurants, from two to four.
“That’s really going to increase the ability for our brewers to continue to grow,” CCBA director Lori Ajax said last week on the Brewbound Podcast. “Over the last 10 years, the growth in the industry has nearly doubled, so the need to have more availability for our craft brewers to grow their taprooms. Especially for our small and mid-sized brewers – that’s what they excel at is being in communities, being community gathering places.”
The bill opens up opportunities for brewers such as Berkeley, California-based Fieldwork Brewing Company, which recently opened a taproom and beer garden in San Leandro. The location would have been the company’s last in California, had AB 2307 not passed, according to the CCBA.
“San Leandro was our biggest opening ever,” Fieldwork co-founder Barry Braden said in the release. “We believe in meeting customers where they’re at, bringing them a community-centered space with great beer, but we had hit our limit on licenses.”
The second (AB 2301) modifies the Alcoholic Beverages Control Act to allow beer manufacturers to distribute their products to their own retail locations within five miles of the production facility. Previous law only allowed manufacturers to distribute to their own locations if production operations were “contiguous or adjective to the premises of the on-sale retailer,” creating an “unnecessary barrier” for craft brewers, the CCBA told Brewbound.
For breweries such as Urban Roots Brewery in Sacramento, AB 2301 cuts down the nearly 200 mile journey its beers travel to go through a distributor. The company has used a Concord-based distributor to distribute beer from its brewery to a warehouse “several counties away,” and back to its restaurant BAWK! By Urban Roots, located less than a mile away from the brewery.
“What’s funny is that we could sell directly to The Shady Lady on one side and Burgers and Brew on the other,” Urban Roots co-founder Peter Hoey, referencing BAWK!’s neighbors, said in a press release published by the CCBA. “But we couldn’t sell directly to the restaurant in the middle because we own it.”