(Alpine, CA) – A little more than three months into the year, Alpine Beer Company‘s actions taken with sales of its beer after seeing it on eBay remains the most-read story on BeerPulse in 2012. Quietly, Alpine released a statement a few weeks later after the late February incident. Here it is in full off of the Alpine blog (posted a few weeks back).
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Much has been made of the decision to do away with filling growlers with “Exponential Hoppiness.” Many people have weighed in on the subject, many who have no involvement and never will feel the decision was rash, rude and unprofessional. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many factors were involved in the decision and considerable time was spent deciding on a course of action. You see, the overriding factor involved in the decision was the illegality of reselling alcohol without a license and the fact I was aware of the illegal practice.
There is nothing new about “Black Market” sales of illegal, limited, rare or banned products in an underground setting. The laws of supply and demand dictate the lucrative venture one may gain from just the right buy and sell opportunity of the right product, whether legal or illegal. Ethics have little to no consideration when making the choice to sell illegally, profit is.
We, as an alcohol seller, have reams of paperwork to file just to see if we qualify to sell alcohol. We were investigated, fingerprinted and had to post a significant bond in order to fulfill the requirements of getting a license. We pay taxes. We pay sales tax and excise tax on all the beer we make and sell. Both the state and federal government hold their hands out for the tax we collect and pay all for the privilege of making and selling beer. So, when someone circumvents the procedure to sell alcohol legally we all should have a problem with their actions. Let’s assume the reason for so much scrutiny is because society wants reputable, honest and trustworthy people to deal in the alcohol industry. We don’t know the reputation of an internet seller.
Selling Alpine Beer on eBay is nothing new and we periodically enter their site to report illegal alcohol sales. Since eBay doesn’t police their site and allows people to list alcohol as easily as entering a thermos for sale, we are forced to view their site for illegal sales. I had stated previously that if I ever found out that growlers of Exponential Hoppiness were being sold on eBay I’d discontinue the growler sales. Someone was nice enough to forward a link to a list of Exponential Hoppiness bottles and a growler for sale to which my only response is to honor my word.
Growlers are for people that live close enough that they can return for refills conveniently and not have to recycle the glass from a six pack. People that ship growler out of the area are totally missing the point of a growler and the whole recycling issue. I can’t support the practice of growler sales for out of area people, period.
We have had to place limits on the amount of bottles people are allowed to purchase. Retail store owner have made a practice of buying as many bottles as we’ll sell them only to return to their store and resell them, another illegal practice. As a result, we have had to limit bottle sales to no more than 4 of any one brand just to discourage the retail store owner from making illegal choices.
We are legally allowed to operate our brewery; our licenses are up to date. But, if we know of an illegal practice that results from our product and don’t take action to mitigate the situation, we become just as guilty as the perpetrator. Action of some sort was warranted because I was aware of the illegal activity. Without taking action I become a law violator by virtue of complicity.
The local reaction has been very supportive. Thank you! The people from the greater Los Angeles area that got offended at my reference to someone driving down just to make a quick buck can chill out. I know specifically of one person getting two friends to act as buyers just so he could increase his purchase quantity, for resale, and he was from LA. Sure there were people from San Diego doing the same thing and they are just as guilty of the illegal offense. Shame on them as well.
In conclusion, Alpine Beer Company is small and has always intended our market to be local. We can’t make more beer, we’ve been making beer at capacity for 8 years now and can’t make any more. To expect our beer to be available outside of San Diego County is unrealistic. We do, occasionally have enough beer to send north, but not very often. Growlers are meant for local use only. Don’t buy a growler for a friend that lives out of the area, you are totally missing the point of what growlers are all about. And, my word is my oath. When I tell you something I expect you to believe it because I’m honest. I was a fireman for a long time and lived by my honesty and trustworthiness and can’t change.
I had totally supported his views on scalping beers but his views on growlers? Not so much.
“Growlers are for people that live close enough that they can return for refills conveniently and not have to recycle the glass from a six pack. People that ship growler out of the area are totally missing the point of a growler and the whole recycling issue. I can’t support the practice of growler sales for out of area people, period.”
Count me in as someone who is “totally missing the point” of growlers, I thought they were a great tool for your supporters to take your beer “to go”, especially when a brewery doesn’t have the means to bottle the product.
I had no idea that it is frowned upon (or close to forbidden?) to “leave town” with a growler. Yikes, I guess from now on when I leave my own neighborhood I should get hammered at the taproom and drive home, rather than purchase the gowler glass and beer and enjoy it responsibly at home.
I guess one mans reality is anothers ubsurbity.
@brewandbbq: I agree with you, but I can also read between the lines in this case. He is making a blanket statement that I believe more refers to out-of-state shipping of growlers, than anything else. I think he just worded it poorly.
Other than that, BRAVO! BRAVO! BRAVO!
Well done and well said. An honest and classy response.
It’s about time we all follow the lead set forth by Alpine to do away with all of this 3rd-party nonsense.
Well done, sir. I toast you.
Cheers
So, you posted a weeks-old story in order to gin up pageviews? Classy.
“But, if we know of an illegal practice that results from our product and don’t take action to mitigate the situation, we become just as guilty as the perpetrator.”
Under what law? It is not the responsibility of the brewery to prevent others from acting illegally. That is the responsibility of law enforcers, in this case, more than likely the TTB. His only responsibility should be to contact the correct authorities and advise them of SOMEONE ELSE committing a crime.
By his reasoning, Alpine should never keg or bottle any beer for sale outside of their facility, as once it has left his establishment there is a possibility that the beer might be sold on illegally.
This seem more like a lame retroactive response to getting pissed that someone was selling his beer and making more profit that he did.
The fallacy in your logic is that you feel there is no correlation between pageviews and reader interest.
Another way of putting your question is…”So, you posted a weeks-old story in order to satisfy your readers’ desires for interesting and engaging content (the reason they visit your site in the first place)? Classy.”
How dare me.
Yup, just checked. Top story of the weekend and a decent amount of activity in the social media sphere after the fact.
Please stop posting things I want to read /sarcasm
Interesting response from the brewery to a situation for which mechanisms are already in place to deal with what they classify illegal activity. And from what they posted they have already been dealing with by reporting same to authorities. Seems to me this will hurt the brewer more than a very few people selling on ebay. A little overreaction both on the growlers and aforementioned brewers manifesto on this subject, IMHO.
democrat.
I don’t know the exact laws in California, but in North Carolina a licensed merchant can do “dock sales” which is basically driving to said brewery picking up as much as you can get, and selling it in your establishment (crossing state line laws apply, however it didn’t seem like this was a factor in this case), there is NOTHING illegal about this practice. Again I do not know if this is true in California, but I would imagine that it is a similar situation. That being the case, if it IS legal to do dock sales than Mr. Alpine has no room to argue a retail establishment coming down and buying product and then re-selling it, in fact he SHOULD be overjoyed that he doesn’t have to pay the extra cost of shipping/distro/etc. that goes along with shipping it out even to close proximity accounts. It is nice to see him stand up against E-Bay, however slamming folks and asking them not to buy their product outside the brewery’s proverbial “bubble”, is just plain idiotic! This story continues to get even more ridiculous as time goes on, We all get it, your proud of your beer, I’ve had it (and I didn’t get it from your brewpub so I expect a cease and desist letter soon) and it’s great, but there are also a dozen different brews from the same area that are just as tasty and don’t come with hate-mail from the brewery. A brewery has NO CONTROL once it leaves the parking lot, so calling out the illegality just makes you look like a “holier than thou” type. Congrats on isolating yourself from the beer drinking community, if I were you I would just sell your brews on tap at your brewery and watch as your brewery slowly circles the drain. I bet this guy smokes marijuana, and has a 2 hour long conversation with his dealer about the legality of his selling and ethics of his business too! It seems like this is setting up to be an epic fail by this brewery, I know as a pretty big retail establishment over on the East Coast there are a lot of people in the business laughing at this story and his unwillingness to just “let it go”! Keep up the good work, I am one of those that is following this story only because it makes me laugh out loud when he comes out with yet another statement!!
just quit whining and sell your fucking beer. is it just me,or are people from california all soft? “you dont get the point of growlers,maaaan”. its fucking beer, lighten up.if i want to buy a growler of something, and drive 2 towns away, how does that affect anyone?what if i recycle it to make homebrew?
more whiny hippy bulshit from cali, imagine that.
I agree with most of what you said Chris. It is funny that a brewer issues a public edict on how growlers are to be used. I for one have several that havebeen collected from around the country. I use them locally and when I travel to have filled as I see fit. I don’t miss the point of growlers use. The holier than thou attitude only seems to apply to the sale of alpine beer on eBay, or maybe they are reporting every single bottle from every single brewery that’s out there. I understand alpines frustration with the taxes as they mostly aptly repeated but I hope the honest souls at alpine have NEVER made a technically legal purchase of anything on eBay in which state or federal taxes were not paid. Otherwise its just plain ol hipocrisy. IMHO.
I don’t know the owner of Alpine so have no clue what his goal is. Maybe he has no ambition at all to grow bigger and see his beer all over the country or even all over California. Maybe it’s totally revers. He want to be a brewery for the local community and support the local community. He might not want to see his beer on ebay selling for much more than he sells it to his customer AND at the same time have to tell his customers that he doesn’t have enough for them. Maybe he wants to support local charities and let them benefit from the popularity of his beers and not some gauger on ebay. I don’t know the law on beer sales on ebay and if it’s legal. Assuming that it isn’t, I can understand his frustration with the lack of oversight of alcoholic beverage sales on ebay. Every brewer, distributor and retailer pays a lot of tax on their products. As a tax payer you would hope that some of that money goes to enforce the law on beer sales on ebay. When that doesn’t happen I can understand the frustration. The field is not really leveled. I work in the beer retail business. When I am lucky enough to get a case of Pliny the Elder I make sure that only my returning customers that knows about it. I don’t want people that only comes to my store to buy just Pliny and then put them on ebay. I want people to come to my store and buy more than just Pliny and be part in building the beer community around the store. I found 2 Kern River Citra and 2 Pliny that went for $79 on ebay today. That doesn’t build a local beer community around my store which I would like. If Alpine Brewery have no other ambition than being a brewery for the local community and support the local community I support him 100%!