What’s Brewing in Albany: Farm Brewery Bill clears first hurdle in Senate

New York is one step closer to have a Farm Brewer’s License after a vote by the State Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Economic Development and Small Business last week.

The unanimous vote on S-5078 last Wednesday now moves the bill to the Senate Finance Committee, where it will need to be passed before heading to the Senate floor. A companion bill in the Assembly is still awaiting its hearing before their Economic Development Committee.

The Farm Brewer bill would create a creates a new class of liquor license for farms looking to brew beer with fresh, local ingredients. Allows for the sale and self-distribution of the beer, as well as tasting and serving of the beer if on-site. There are stringent agricultural requirements, however: after 10 years, the farm brewery must source 90% of all its ingredients from New York State. The license cost - $320 - is about 20% less than the cost of a full-blown microbrewery license. There’s a cap of 15,000 barrels/year of output with this license.

Meanwhile, Sen. Martin Dilan’s (D-Brooklyn) bill, S-1652, to allow breweries to pour their own beer at beer festivals has been tabled in committee. This means that for the time being, brewery representatives will continue to be bound by law from pouring their own beer at beer festivals.

Worse, though, is news that S-5829 passed through the committee unanimously and is on the floor calendar for the full Senate this week. We vented about this bill earlier this month, pointing out how absurd this law is. We’re not surprised by this, since it passed through the Senate last year, but it’s despicable that the legislature is willing to make special accommodations to allow one brewer to own a separate bar rather than change the entire law, which is an unfair relic of the prohibition era.