Beer In The Mail...Legality?

T

texicus

Junior Member
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So, here's the lowdown.  A friend and I are doing homebrew batches of Surly Bender and Cynic...but have never actually tasted either beer.  I'm currently tracking down someone in the Twin Cities area to try and send out a couple cans of each up here to Canada so we can do a comparison, but nobody knows the total legality of doing so.  USPS says illegal, but the other carriers seem a little more lenient as in well...you really shouldnt...

Anybody have experience in shipping booze around?
 
Transporting alcohol (for intoxicating purposes) across state lines is actually still illegal, hence the premise for Burt Reynolds' career.  It's in the wording of the 21st Amendment repealing the 18th.  However if you've ever been to a winery, they'll mail it to you in another state.  Liquor stores are full of liquor, wine, and beer from other states and countries.  Interstate commerce may play into the legality of individuals doing it.
 
On a small scale, it's a victimless crime, but states bordering each other with different alcohol %s in beer, OK and TX, state line transport is very heavily enforced.
 
The rules regarding shipping alcohol vary from state to state. 
In Arizona, where I live, it is illegal to ship alcohol into the state. 
I used to brew beer and it is a blast.  The only challenge in Arizona is that if you don't have a controlled temperature environment, the brewing season is very short.
Good luck &  :rock-on:
 
From a wine site: (for US domestic)
Thanks to stick-in-the-mud buzzkilling state legislators, wine may only be delivered to the following states:

    Arizona
    California
    Colorado
    Connecticut
    District Of Columbia
    Florida
    Georgia
    Idaho
    Illinois
    Iowa
    Kansas
    Louisiana
    Maine
    Michigan
    Minnesota
    Missouri
    Nebraska
    Nevada
    New Hampshire
    New Mexico
    New York
    North Carolina
    North Dakota
    Ohio
    Oregon
    South Carolina
    Tennessee
    Texas
    Vermont
    Virginia
    Washington
    West Virginia
    Wisconsin
    Wyoming

If your state's not on the list, you're out of luck... for now. Keep up with the ever-changing laws over at ShipCompliantBlog.com, and/or sound the alarms with your state assembly person through FreeTheGrapes.org. Meanwhile, all Federal, state and local laws are complied with in providing this wine.
 
k-k-kboooman said:
...so no good wine in Arizona? :icon_scratch:
Click to expand...

Ah, it seems the laws have changed for Arizona.  You can now have wine shipped to Arizona if it is from a winery producing under 20,000 gallons per year.
Plus, you must physically travel to the winery making the shipment and pay for all wine being shipped at that point. 
If you want more wine, you must travel back to the winery and pay for additional shipments at that location. 
:icon_scratch:
 
I still don't get it. It's not possible to bring wine into a large number of US states? What kind of legislation is that?! And what do you poor sods drink instead?
 
It's not legal in some cases for individuals. Licensed distributors are a different story.

Most of it has to do with conflicting taxation, so the commerce has to be specially handled. Individuals aren't set up for that.

Of course, the laws get flouted all the time, but the whole situation puts enough of a damper on the business that the bootleggers generally aren't a serious problem. Although, in some areas the laws have gotten so extreme that the cost differentials encourage bootlegging. Cigarettes, for instance, can have wildly different tax rates from one state to the next, so when one state decides to tax the snot out of people in the mistaken belief that it will increase revenues, revenues actually go down because independent "entrepreneurs" will rent trucks and go buy wine and cigarettes in huge amounts from 200 miles away, then return and still be able to sell the stuff for less than it can be bought legally. And they'll make piles of money doing it.
 
Thanks guys.  I'm gonna keep working on this, but I'm starting to think I might have to get some shipped to Missouri if I go down next year.  I guess that's what I get for trying to brew a craft clone.  Anyway, wish us luck!  First all grain attempt to be started in a week...
 
Does beer keep when you ship it warm? I imagine it'd be skunky and gross by the time it arrived, but i have a very limited understanding of beer in that respect
 
I've heard sunlight, and not necessarily temp is what makes it skunky.  It's why most beers are in dark bottles, and why Corona in a clear bottle is extra skunky.  On some it's intentional though.  Heineken?
 
dNA said:
Does beer keep when you ship it warm? I imagine it'd be skunky and gross by the time it arrived, but i have a very limited understanding of beer in that respect
Click to expand...

Depends on whether it's been pasteurized. Most commercial beers are, and so have extraordinarily long shelf lives. Specialty or home brews usually aren't, so you need to drink them sooner.

For a long time we couldn't get Coors in Michigan because they didn't pasteurize. State wouldn't let them import it. Called it a health risk. Not sure that's really the case, but that was the excuse. So, they started pasteurizing it and now you can buy it anywhere. Of course, it doesn't taste the same - it's got the same 'beer-flavored water" character that you find with most commercial beers like you get from Miller or Anheuser-Busch. So, it lost its cachet. Not that it was ever that great, but back when you could only get it bootlegged, having a case of Coors in the house was like serving Roast Duck à l'Orange instead of Chicken Paprikash. Both good, but the duck is "special" somehow.
 
Hilarious Cagey. We used to drive to Oklahoma from Arkansas (no small drive from Little Rock) just to get Coors (in the 70's). We thought it was gourmet as you said. Was probably bad back then but seemed so special. Arkansas liquor laws have relaxed quite a bit since I lived there but there are still many "dry" counties and many places require a membership to drink. I do know that most California wine is available though in the Little Rock area so shipping laws have relaxed as well.
 
It was not only "gourmet" back before micro-breweries caught the eye of the discerning boozehound, they also had those push-button tops that you didn't see anywhere else, and a non-standard can shape - still 12oz., but they were slightly taller and thinner than everybody else's. I don't know if they still do those or not, but I gotta think they suffered a lotta lawsuits over those things. It was a severe finger laceration just waiting to happen. Pretty cool at the time, though, since it was "different".
 
dNA said:
Does beer keep when you ship it warm? I imagine it'd be skunky and gross by the time it arrived, but i have a very limited understanding of beer in that respect
Click to expand...

I've never seen a refrigerated beer truck. 

To my taste, I've never believed the theory that beer will skunk if you let it warm up (commercial beer at least.)  I agree that sunlight is bad, but in all my years I've never noticed any difference in beer that has been refrigerated then allowed to warm up and then refrigerated again.  However maybe I just don't have as sensitive a palate as those who buy into that theory.
 
As far as I know, heat doesn't bother a beer (unless it's extreme).  The fermentation is done and nothing is really left to react.  Light can definitely affect it from what I hear.  I actually prefer warm beer a lot of times, unless its a piss lager.
 
I like warmish beer too for beers like Guinness and similar.

On a side note, I don't drink coffee, but I love coca cola.  All jokes aside, I drink the Mexican Coke with cane sugar instead of the American stuff with high fructose corn syrup.  I may be a freak, but I like my Coke room temperature.  The flavor really opens up.  I'll drink it cold if I get it at a restaurant, but at home its always room temp.  Sorry for the thread hijack.
 
I had a friend in college who had a dad who used to home brew. What he did was went through a few redundancies to ensure product safety. After bottling the beer, he'd actually dip the necks of the bottles in wax several times to ensure a pure seal. He'd then pack in the bottles plenty tight, and would actually pour liquid foam into the box. He'd then saw the top of the foam off so the box would close flush, and he'd send it that way. A lot of steps, but it covered his butt. If you do it from friend to friend, there's honestly no true harm in it--the biggest thing that states are after is the tax revenue that comes from alcohol sales. That's why moonshine is illegal--there are a few distilleries that actually make corn-mash moonshine for public consumption, but Uncle Sam gets his cut of the profits, so that makes him happy and everyone lives in harmony. Buying your moonshine one Mason jar at a time from a guy who gets the jar out of a box he keeps in the back of his El Camino will get you in trouble with the Feds.

If there is ever a formal inquiry into the shipped package, you are perfectly allowed to send it as a gift, as no money exchanged hands.
 
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