Gov. Laura Kelly signed a bill allowing small craft breweries to directly sell to retailers, restaurants and bars.
Kansas, like most other states, uses a three-tier system for alcohol sales where brewers sold to wholesalers, who then sold the product to vendors. Microbrewers said it can sometimes be challenging to get their product in local liquor stores or restaurants through wholesalers.
It also led to smaller issues for brewers, like having to sell their own product to themselves at retail prices in order to have vendor booths at local events.
“Local was being shunned or sidelined to promote and push ‘big label brands,’” said Sean Wilcott, a Holton-based brewer who helped organize brewers for the bill. “Because distributors are private businesses, even though we are under contract for them to sell our products, distributors have the legal right to choose what products they carry and promote, so they are working within the realm of the law by limiting our product exposure and promoting the big label brands.”
The legislation was supported by several small breweries, restaurants, local chambers of commerce and the libertarian-leaning advocacy group Americans for Prosperity Kansas.
On the opposite end, statewide wholesalers and retailer associations argued against the bill, arguing that microbreweries are more popular than ever and that challenging the three-tier system could ultimately harm the brewers the legislation seeks to protect.
“Large international brewers would control the market without the three-tier system, and the critical, independent distribution tier and small craft brewers would be completely locked out,” said Jason Watkins, executive director of the Kansas Beer Wholesalers Association.
Distributors and retailers blamed recent slumps that brewers blamed on unfair representation on an industry-wide downturn in beer consumption, and that craft brewers already have exceptions from the three-tier system that allow them to sell directly to the public.
Historically, Kansas has been slower to embrace alcohol as other states. Kansas maintained the illegality of alcohol for almost 20 years after the end of prohibition in 1929. It wouldn’t be until 1987 that Kansas allowed on-premise alcohol sales in bars and restaurants.
As reported in the Topeka Capital Journal
