If You Live in Pennsylvania You Still Can't Buy Beer at the Grocery Store

2008-03-25T11:00:00-05:00

Pennsylvania's Liquor Control Board cleared the way for Wegmans grocery to begin selling beer, wine and 'hard' alcohol in it's supermarket cafes in six stores within Pennsylvania. But wait! The six stores in: Bethlehem, Dickson City, Lower Nazareth, State College, Wilkes-Barre and Williamsport probably will not be pouring you anything more alcoholic than near beer anytime soon.

Wegmans grocery store cafes are technically regulated as restaurants. That is where the problems begin. A restaurant in a grocery store is somewhat unique by Pennsylvania standards. See, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania you can not buy beer, wine or alcohol at the grocery store. Within Pennsylvania consumers are forced to buy beer from distributors who force purchase of an entire case (which who knows if you will even like the beer) or in bars where you can purchase a maximum of 12 beers at a time (at great cost). Wine, spirits and other hard alcohol are sold only at the Commonwealth's Wine and Spirits stores, a state owned and operated monopoly.

Speaking of monopoly beer sold in Pennsylvania is over 70% purchased from beer distributors. Beer distributors trace their gifted monopoly position all the way back to Prohibition and their monopoly is granted under Pennsylvania's outdated liquor licensing laws.

The Malt Beverage Distributors Association of Pennsylvania has taken legal action asking a Pennsylvania court to overturn the LCB's decision to allow Wegmans to sell beer. The MBDA's president David Shipula has been quoted as saying:

“...Pennsylvania’s historic ban on beer sales where groceries or gasoline are sold... is good public policy that has been in place for 70 years ... some chains like Wegmans on the grocery side and Sheetz on the gasoline side have been finding loopholes in the law to co-locate beer sales with groceries and gasoline”.

The MBDA has also gone the legal suit route (with pending action in the PA Supreme Court) against Sheetz. Sheetz opened a new mega-store store concept with coffee bar, gelato, carved meat and lots of other food offerings. They included take-out beer in the concept, thus somehow finding a unique way to create a newly licensed category or otherwise open the door for convenience stores and supermarkets in Pennsylvania to sell beer. They were approved by the LCB to sell beer for takeout, proceeded to, then forced to stop now for a year pending appeal initiated by MBDA.

How banning beer sales of individual bottles, larger individual bottles and six packs at convenient locations like gas stations, grocery stores and convenience stores is a good policy is laughable. Sure it is good policy if you are a beer distributor in Pennsylvania because you are given a preferred monopoly status and a consumer base with no real choices where to buy from. Selling beer in convenience stores and at gas stations all across the United States for decades has not caused any epidemic, not contributed more to alcoholism, not created more driving and beer related fatalities.

What really is at stake here is money. With the craft beer industry churning along nicely with steady annual growth, with more folks trying the microbrews there is a larger pile of money being laid down for that case of brewsky and there are fewer dollars being spent on the macro beers. Beer distributors are going to fight beyond reason to protect their high end customers who are dropping 50%+ more on the microbrews versus the under priced macro beer. After the microbrew fans discover growlers at the local brewery, bottleshops, new places to buy beer right over the border of the next state - distributors in Pennsylvania will start to taste some of their own antics.

Win or lose, where you go to buy your beer is changing in Pennsylvania. The LCB is under fire and media establishments and politicians are discussing privatizing the Commonwealth's monopoly stranglehold on wine and spirits. So why should dissolving Pennsylvania's beer distributor monopoly not get the same treatment?

Have Good Beers? Then Have a Beer List Already!

2008-02-26T09:00:00-05:00

So you head to this bar or restaurant or other incarnation that allegedly has a good beer selection. You have never been there before and your source of reliable beer information failed to stick anything tempting to drink in your brain.

You get seated and the waitress hands you a food menu and asks what you would like to drink. You say a beer while she slowly rambles off the undrinkables: Bud, Miller, Coors Light, etc. This is while you fumble angrily through the menu and then scour over the table in that area where they heap the condiments and advertisements looking for a complete beverage list.

Maybe if you are brave or tired of this like me you ask "Where the beer list?" or "Where is a beverage list?"

This large problem seems to happen way too often. It must be one of the biggest problems the craft beer industry has.

Sure if you are at a brewpub, they will most certainly have all the beers on the trendy, but effective and required chalkboard for consideration. But what I am talking about here are the restaurants and bars who serve food, have a food menu, have beer taps, have a cooler with beer and serve wine and spirits.

My never ending gripe is that these places seem to think patrons are mind readers or that patrons wanting the good beer should be sitting at the bar talking to the bartender. How is someone going to order something you do not have on a menu?

What exactly does it say when the staff starts the beer list and ends it with only the macro beers? It says that the establishment’s days might be numbered. It says there is a lack of training. It also says there are many missed opportunities to convert customers into more lucrative craft beer drinkers.

So do me a favor if you own or operate any place that serves craft beer – put a beer menu on each table. Or consider putting the craft beer, soft drinks and mixed drinks all on a drink menu to accompany the food menu.

PubCrawler.com - Beer Blog

If You Live in Pennsylvania You Still Can't Buy Beer at the Grocery Store

Have Good Beers? Then Have a Beer List Already!