Beer-to-go bid by Macon brewpubs gets the OK from commissioners

Selling beer in Georgia isn’t easy. Brewers face a host of restrictions, but restaurants that make their own beer may have found a way around state law, with the help of local government ordinances.

First, you need to know the difference between a brewery and a brewpub. Both of them make beer, but state law caps the amount that a brewpub can churn out. That’s because they’re supposed to primarily serve food and beverages.

Trish Whitley and her husband, Brian, are part of the team trying to put the finishing touches on the Piedmont Brewery and Kitchen. It’s opening in a long-vacant storefront in downtown Macon.

“We’ll have a full-service restaurant, but we will also brew beer on site,” Trish Whitley said. “The brewery will be downstairs in an American urban arcade.”

Brewpubs have begun to change the way they serve the public. While Georgia breweries can’t sell beer directly to consumers and need a distributor to do so, brewpub owners believe that restriction shouldn’t apply to them. They want to sell pints of beer on the premises and half-gallon jugs — known as “growlers” — to take home.

Nanci Palmer, executive director of the Georgia Craft Brewers Guild, said those owners sought a ruling from the state in March on whether the same restrictions on breweries applied to brewpubs.

“They got confirmation from the Department of Revenue that the state really did not care whether or not the brewpubs could sell growlers,” Palmer said.

Palmer said the state also confirmed that the sale of growlers by brewpubs would be a local issue. And suddenly there was flurry of local ordinances beginning with Alpharetta and Savannah.

“We’ve seen a similar movement in Forsyth County, unincorporated parts of Cobb County,” Palmer said. “Decatur is considering it, the city of Atlanta is considering it.”

Macon-Bibb County commissioners have been weighing a similar ordinance. A committee unanimously approved a brewpub license with the growler provision last month. The full commission gave its OK Tuesday night.

So why are local governments eager to jump on the bandwagon?

“In communities like Asheville, North Carolina, (and) in Charleston, South Carolina, you’ve seen places where the brewpubs themselves have become a part of the overall economic development and tourism package of a community,” said Alex Morrison, executive director of the Macon-Bibb County Urban Development Authority.

“What we’re finding is that there’s such a large community of craft brewers who do like beer tourism that they actually seek out new places to ... market craft brews,” Morrison added. “And so you see tourism and out-of-town spending increase.”

Morrison said Macon wants to use its code of ordinances to show that the area supports small business, like the Whitleys’ Piedmont Brewery and Kitchen.

“As one city gets something passed and … is successful, it’s good for all of them,” Trish Whitley said. “One city looks at another and, you know, it helps the whole business.”

Meanwhile, craft brewers are keeping up their push with state lawmakers for the same retail privileges that brewpubs are gaining, selling directly to consumers.

This story was originally published June 8, 2016 at 5:15 PM with the headline "Beer-to-go bid by Macon brewpubs gets the OK from commissioners."