Patience and ?

The other day something exciting happened. An email from TTB was received stating that our application was given a tracking number and that a Specialist was assigned to us. Oh boy! One tiny step forward. Patience is all that is needed. The application process does take some time but the good news is it will eventually go through. When that happens, we will celebrate.

While we eagerly wait, one of our latest belgian beers will be opened tonight and tasted. Well, (ah-hem) let me clarify, it has been opened and IS being consumed by all those lucky souls present. If Jeremy enjoyed writing, I would have him talk a little more about it which is another reason why we look forward to opening BadWolf. He loves talking about his beer!!!

There are so many people we've run into who aren't familiar with craft beer, even more, the idea of a nanobrewery opening in their town! Some people think it's a bar and then we have to clarify that it's not just a bar, there's much more to it. All of the production is done in-house and served right there. Talk about local business and building community! Prior to prohibition, breweries abounded in many cities and the only reason there wasn't a national beer brand was because refrigeration had not been invented and thus the distribution networks lacked. Who wouldn't want freshly brewed beer on site?  Sometimes we use the winery example to explain the concept. From some of the material we have read, good beer and fine wine are quite similar and you can learn a lot from reading about both beverages. In fact, beer is awesome because the most expensive bottles of beer are not as pricey as the cheapest bottles of wine. Although, that may be changing as more expensive ingredients are going into the recipes and bottle conditioning becomes more popular...

Guess this is just a rambling blog tonight. Cheers anyways!

Update on Our Proposed Legislation

In our proposed legislation, the 3-tier system is still in place. As of 2008, wineries distribute their own wine as contracted employees of the Virginia Winery Distribution Company. So they essentially self distribute, but they only have to pay a $5 fee for each transaction using a special database. No 27% to 35% markup on each keg. Utilizing the same setup with the Virginia Winery Distribution Company, we could rename it to the Virginia Wine and Craft Brewery Distribution Company. 

This means that small breweries like ourselves, would sell kegs for what they are worth minus a few bucks! So BadWolf could still have our wholesaler drive our kegs to their far away destinations but we could also have a choice to deliver our own kegs to the restaurant down the street, and charge almost full price for the keg.

As we discussed in our letter, this would help small breweries get off the ground and since wholesalers have a great network of places to distribute beer, small breweries who eventually scale up could take advantage of their services. But in the meantime, this legislation helps out the small guys like us.

All we need to do is have a few breweries back us up and get the draft legislation in place. We need this soon! The VA Brewer's Guild is aware of the idea and apparently some breweries are already working on legislation. We have contacted those breweries and we are now working together to see if we can get the legislation passed by next year!!!