Last weekend, I attended an open house at TheLab.ms makerspace in Plano, Texas. This is a cool place that I’ve been hanging out at on Fridays since I discovered it through attending a podcast talk they hosted in May. I have now officially joined the community and will be using it more as a work at home away from home office, if that makes any sense. One of the activities that TheLab has is a monthly “brew night”. At the open house, they had refreshments available including soft drinks and beer. Beer… including several varieties of traditional beer purchased from local vendors as well as two examples of beer brewed at the monthly brew nights. But there was a catch. The “home brew” was only to be consumed by those who actually participated in the brewing. Why? You guessed it… A crazy liquor law.
Post Prohibition Homebrew History
When the 21st amendment repealed prohibition in the U.S. in 1933, although home wine making was legalized, it mistakenly left out the legalization of home beer making. This wasn’t remedied until 1978 with the passage of legislation creating an exemption from taxation of beer brewed at home for personal or family use making homebrewing legal on a federal level in the U.S.
Of course this simply turned regulation of home brewing over to the individual states, whose implementation varies widely. Some states actually allow for transportation of homebrew to events such as competitions and club meetings. Mississippi and Alabama were the last two states to legalize home brewing in 2013.
Texas Home Brew Regulations
According to Texas statute Title 4, Chapter 109, Subchapter B, §109.21:
“The head of a family or an unmarried adult may produce for the use of his family or himself not more than 200 gallons of wine, ale, malt liquor, or beer, per year. No license or permit is required.”
So I guess the catch is “for the use of his family or himself”. I have discovered there is a loophole, but it’s a bit of a hassle and probably not practical (or even possible) for this situation.
Delivery of Home-Produced Wine, Ale, Malt Liquor, or Beer for Certain Purposes
For the purpose of participating in an organized tasting, evaluation, competition, or literary review, a person to whom this section applies may deliver wine, ale, malt liquor, or beer produced and manufactured by the person to locations that are not licensed under this code for the purpose of submitting those products to an evaluation at an organized tasting competition that is closed to the general public or by a reviewer whose reviews are published if:
(1) no charge of any kind is made for the wine, ale, malt liquor, or beer, for its delivery, or for attendance at the event; and
(2) the commission consents in writing to the delivery.
The brewers could possibly “deliver” their beer to the open house for an “organized tasting”. Since there was no charge for attending the open house or for drinking the beer, qualification (1) would be satisfied. The problem would probably be qualification (2). They would need to obtain consent of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission. I have no idea how difficult that process would be.
For more details on home-brew regulations for your state, take a look at American Homebrewers Association where you can get an overview of home-brew legislation by state.
What do you think?
So let me know what you think. Do you have a Crazy Liquor Law story? We want to hear about it. Leave a comment below. Or email me at Mark@CrazyLiquorLaws.com. You will need to register to comment and at that time I will need your email address; but don’t worry; I won’t be spamming you and will never sell your information.
Cheers!
Mark