S.C. law requires distribution of beer and spirits through an independent wholesaler.
The issue brewing in the Statehouse is part of a long-standing national debate over the middle man — the wholesaler who is required to transport alcohol from the manufacturer to the retailer — in the three-tiered system that has been the norm in every state since the 21st Amendment repealed Prohibition in 1933.
Distributors are charged with collecting government taxes, monitoring and tracking their products and providing alcohol education.
The majority of states have made some exceptions to the rule, allowing beer samples and sales at microbreweries, for instance. South Carolina allows local vineyards that right, but not breweries or distilleries. Brewpubs can sell their alcohol on site but cannot distribute it elsewhere.
“There’s a lot of education that needs to be done in regards to craft beer. It’s really akin to wine,” said Tenny, who also heads Pop the Cap South Carolina, a nonprofit organization that supports the region’s craft beer industry — if you can call it an industry.
Few local taps
In a city that prides itself on originality in hospitality, a beer connoisseur is limited largely to national and international labels.
Coast, Southend Brewery & Smokehouse and Palmetto Brewing Co. are the exceptions. Palmetto broke ground in 1993, becoming the first microbrewery to open in South Carolina in more than a century. Southend opened in 1998 as a brewpub, not a microbrewery, so its eight different styles can be consumed only at the restaurant on East Bay Street in downtown Charleston.
Firefly started up in 2006 and remains the state’s only micro-distillery.
In the 75th anniversary year of Prohibition’s repeal, supporters of homegrown labels across the country are asking state lawmakers to a take a hard look at laws that might inadvertently hinder the art.
Brewing is as much a creative career as a scientific one. Request a wheat beer, India pale ale, barley wine or pilsner, and you know generally what to expect. Yet it doesn’t take a finely tuned palate to relish the differences among labels.
Beer combines the creative blend of color, bitterness, flavor and aroma, a concoction devised through the mix of barley and hops, timing and temperature.
The best judge of a recipe is the tongue, says Merritt: “Does it taste good or not?”
Rapid popularity
Apparently at Coast, it does. The microbrewery delivered its first barrel to Evo last September. Three months later, it had maxed out production and was in 32 different restaurants within a 15-mile radius of its home on the former Navy base in North Charleston.
It is among the best sellers at Gene’s Haufbrau in West Ashley, said bartender and part-time manager Chris Ficara.
“It’s a great beer,” Ficara said, “but the initial interest was because customers wanted to try a local beer, so I do think there’s room for growth there.”
Tar Heel state goes home-brewed
North Carolina is among those states that made exceptions for microbreweries, and the industry there is thriving.
“I can see where it would be a big bar and hurdle to breweries if you were
obligated to go through a wholesaler without a choice,” said Oscar Wong, founder and owner of Highland Brewing Co. in Asheville, N.C.
His is the largest and oldest microbrewery in a city that has been sprouting them in the past several years. The town of about 70,000 people has one microbrewery for every 10,000 residents, with three more planning to open by year’s end, Wong said.
Neither Wong nor the Asheville Area Convention & Visitors Bureau could assign a dollar figure to the microbreweries’ economic impact on the city. But one need look no further than the mid-September Brewgrass Festival, which quickly sold out of its 3,500 tickets, to see that it certainly makes one, said Dodie Stephens, bureau spokeswoman. Many of the attendees were from out of town, she said, dumping money into hotels, restaurants and other attractions.
“The menus here for local beer are longer than the regular drink menus. We promote the microbreweries heavily on the tourism side,” she said.
A legislative ally
Merritt and Tenny thought about moving to North Carolina. But in the end, they decided their hearts were in Charleston and that perhaps they could teach this town a thing or two about the local brew.
They have already had some success.
Last year, Pop the Cap found a legislative ally in Republican Rep. Bill Herbkersman, who, along with his brother, founded the first brewpub in the state in the late 1990s. The two operated Hilton Head Brewing Co.; St. Simons Brewing Co.; and Columbia Brewing Co. The joy of local beer is in the naming rights, he said. For years in Columbia, they sold a football season favorite called Cocksure Red.
“I think we’ll fight the fight again,” said Herbkersman, now a Bluffton real estate developer. “We’d be crazy if we didn’t, particularly with the influx of people moving in from the North. They are just used to local brews. I think if we do it, it really provides enterprise and jobs and we can really take advantage of an opportunity.”
The organization scored its first coup last year, convincing lawmakers to up the alcohol content allowed in beers from 6.2% to 17.5% by volume. (Coast’s brews range from 4% to 9 %.)
Pop the Cap got its name from the high-gravity beer fight. But it is about to adopt a more holistic label, the S.C. Brewers Association, and will continue to support the state’s fledgling craft beer industry, Tenny said.
