Minnesota Bar Busted for Selling Spotted Cow

Tsk tsk tsk. http://www.startribune.com/local/west/300722681.html

I feel much safer now.

Stupid… Alcohol… Laws…

Evil-doers do evil. It’s what they do.

Has nothing to do with alcohol laws at all. New Glarus doesn’t want their beer sold out of Wisconson. The law doesn’t prevent their beer from being sold in Minnesota, the brewery does.

You sure? That doesn’t seem to be what the article says:

Beer manufactured by New Glarus is only distributed in Wisconsin. The company is not a licensed manufacturer of alcoholic beverages in Minnesota, so it’s illegal to distribute New Glarus beer to a retail establishment. Neither the bar’s manager nor the Maple Tavern are licensed to transport or import alcoholic beverage into Minnesota.

Great publicity for what is- in my opinion- a very mediocre brewery. Have yet to try a new glarus that I have loved. Decent beers, but NG is not worthy of all of this praise that is saying their beers are “highly sought after.”

I agree Ariamali. Especially the “spotted cow”. Some of their other beers are pretty good but not in proportion to the buzz.

You’re probably too young to remember it, but Coors used to have a similar cachet east of the Rockies. Locally; people would ask travelers to bring back Coors from their ski trips.

Hell that was the basis for the plot of “Smokey and the Bandit”.

If I didn’t want my beer sold in another state, I wouldn’t apply for a permit, therefore it would be illegal. Why have a license in a state you don’t want to sell to?

It isn’t a God given right to buy everyone’s beer in your local store. Beer is finite. Not quite as finite as wine, but finite. If I as a brewer would rather make sure every store within 100 miles got as much as they wanted and as fresh as possible, I’m not obligated to send the beer 2-3 states away just because there is a ‘demand’ for it. Especially nowadays, if you start selling out your beers before the next batch is ready and you have availability lags, there are 2-3 other breweries just waiting to take your spot on a shelf.

Another example: Before Lagunitas got big, I found some of their beer in a bar in DC. I contacted them to find out who they were working with, but turns out they didn’t have a wholesaler at that time. DC has extremely liberal retail laws, to the point that a bar or store can go out to the West Coast and buy a bunch of stuff wholesale and box truck it back. Problem with that is the cost puts everything at an extremely high price point, and their beers were $2+ more than the other craft beers at that time per $12oz bottle. The sales are slow, there are more stale and sub-standard beers, and the brewery gets a reputation for poor quality and over-priced beer. They found out where the bar sourced the beers and gave them a talking to.

their fruited sours are damn good

I agree that a brewery should be able to control the distribution of their product, but that should be a civil matter, not a felony as mentioned in the original article.

P Hickner

+1. Had one for the first time when I was in MKE last December. Had another the next day. And the next…

Would this same tavern owner be allowed to drive to a liquor store in Minnesota, purchase a keg and sell the beer from it at their tavern?

The Spotted Cow in the case here is, indeed, very mediocre. It is their answer to PBR, IMO. However the brewery does make many world class beers. Their Wild Sour from a few years ago was excellent. Scream IIPA is also excellent. The regulars Dancing Man and Moon Man are very good as well. I had some Road Slush last night which I enjoy quite a bit. They make so many beers. Most are very good or excellent but they do make some clunkers.

Apologies for going a little OT:

A friend is traveling to Wisconsin today and has offered to buy me some NG beers…anything currently available that I should ask her to seek out?

What kinds of beers do you generally like? I caution people about their fruit beers because they are fairly sweet (and the rhubarb one was just plain strange).

Pretty open to diverse styles; the only thing I really don’t care for is wheat beers (meh) or crazy hopped IPAs (reasonable amounts of hops are fine though). I enjoy almost all fruit beers, so I thought the raspberry tart and maybe whatever sours are available?

Come on over - I have the entire recent release

Enigma is available. I’ve only had one bottle and wasn’t in the mood for a sour so I’m going to reserve judgement/comment. It’s probably worth trying. I really love Scream but that might fall into the crazy hopped IPA category for you. I prefer Belgian Red over Raspberry Tart in the fruit beer category but both are worth trying if you like sweet. I describe Raspberry Tart as a bottle of liquid Red Tootsie Pop. Hopster is a hopped wheat beer so stay away from that – I’m not a fan of it myself. I like wheat and I like hops but not together in this case. Moon Man is a well balanced APA and you’ll probably enjoy that. I could easily drink Moon Man every day for the rest of my life. Two Women & Totally Naked: while they might sound good, just sort of meh for me. Apple Ale is okay if you like cider but didn’t get me going. I think that’s most of what is available now.