St. Arnold Goes to Austin

David Maass writes this in the San Antonio Current:

"Honestly, we're probably talking about selling a couple hundred barrels-a-year direct to the public," Wagner says. "But that couple-hundred barrels, if we sell direct to customers ... our profit goes from about a buck to a buck-fifty [per case] to about $13. That's like selling another two or three thousand barrels ...

"Breweries will be able to take that money, reinvest it in the brewery, market their beer better, grow better, hire more people," Wagner says.

St. Arnold's has banded together with Texas's other three breweries to launch a grassroots lobbying movement centered around a blog at Starnoldgoestoaustin.com. If it's not too much for us to speculate, if one bill passes in the upcoming legislative session, it'll be this one.

That's because all the Texas blogosphere is buzzing about it, and they're not just talking about pints and foam. The bill's a matter of supporting small businesses, a buzzword in every politicians' lexicon. The breweries don't have a bill sponsor yet, but their catchphrase is "Beer is a bipartisan issue," with lefty blogger Charles Kuffner (Offthekuff.com) endorsing it and Republican blogger "Evan" (Perryvstheworld.com) helping draft the bill.

Excellent article by Maass, which also does some good reporting on brewpub licenses. I'll comment more later.