Montana Micro Breweries Under Microscope

It seems as though some in the business of brewing their own beer are trying to skirt around the fee's of a liquor license by being a "Tasting" room.

The current laws exempt them from the retail alcohol license requirement. New legislation being talked about in Helena is looking at making the micro breweries purchase a $100,000 license . Some in the bar and tavern business thinks they need to be reigned in and stop taking advantage of the system.

State brewers say it would stifle their business and others say they are taking advantage of the current laws.

This was in  a recent article in Bloomberg Businessweek .

Rep. Roger Hagan, R-Great Falls, said stricter restrictions are needed on the brewers. He said brewers are taking advantage of laws, revised in the late 1990s, that allowed the breweries to retail beer sell up to 48 ounces of beer a day to customers before 8 p.m.

What it was suppose to do is just let people have a sample of their product and hopefully buy some to take. But some of the breweries sell almost all of their beer on site and have none for retail.

Seems like they are taking advantage of the system to me.