New Bill Will Allow Craft Brewers, Like Revolution, To Expand
By Melissa McEwen in Food on Jun 9, 2015 7:05PM
Last year craft brewers were worried they might be crippled by a law that capped the amount of beer a brewery with a brewpub could sell at 50,000 gallons. That would have been bad news for rapidly expanding breweries like Revolution Brewing. Thankfully a bill has passed both houses that will allow Revolution, and brewers like them, to go forward with their planned expansion.
The new bill, HB 3237, creates a new type of license called Class 2, upping the amount to 155,000 gallons per year for breweries that own up to three brewpubs.
It's still a ton of frankly unnecessary regulation (you still have to pay penance to ye olde three tier racket), but at least its a step forward along with the Happy Hour Bill that is also waiting for Gov. Rauner's signature.
It also allows distributors and brewers to tweet about events and post them to Facebook. I bet you didn't even know that was illegal.
You can read more about it all at Guys Drinking Beer, which has fantastic Illinois beer law coverage.