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“Owners and staff of Virginia’s breweries were generous with their cheering last week at the Virginia Craft Beer Cup, put on by the Virginia Craft Brewers Guild.
While beer makers got plenty of love, the most thunderous ovation at the annual awards ceremony was reserved for VCBG President and CEO Brett Vassey, when he announced that the guild plans to lobby during the upcoming General Assembly session for breweries to have the right to self-distribute their products.
Currently, to get their beers to restaurants and bottle shops, breweries of all sizes in Virginia must sell their beer to a distributor, which then sells it to those retailers. The arrangement is known as “the three-tier system” and is codified in state law.
The VCBG is looking to change the law so that breweries can sell their beer directly to retailers, with mainly smaller and newer breweries in mind.
“For small brewers, this is a really, really big deal,” Vassey said in an interview with BizSense….”
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