House of Brews, Frankenmuth Gain Self-Distribution Rights in Illinois

In Beer News by Ryan

House of Brews in Madison, Wisconsin and the Frankenmuth Brewery in Frankenmuth, Michigan have become the first out-of-state breweries to receive a Craft Brewers License from the Illinois Liquor Control Commission and the right to self-distribute in this state.

frankenmuthhouseofbrews

House of Brews is a fairly small operation. In its application for a Craft Brewers License Owner Page Buchanan noted House of Brews brewed nearly 475 barrels of beer in the last 12-months and expected to brew just 600 barrels in the coming year. House of Brews is also a Community Supported Brewery, much like our friends at Begyle.

I visited Frankenmuth Brewery a few years ago and found their beers to be solid, albeit not spectacular, with a lean towards traditional German styles. Interestingly, a publication which named Louis Glunz Beer Inc its Wholesaler of the Year last year noted the distributor would be adding Frankenmuth. That was in September and we haven’t heard anything since. We reached out to Glunz’s PR people who, while responsive, haven’t provided a yes or no as to whether Frankenmuth was welcomed into the fold at Glunz.

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So, what does House of Brews and Frankenmuth plan to do with these newly obtained licenses? No idea.

Believe you me, it wasn’t for a lack of trying. We reached out to the folks at Frankenmuth and never received a response. The same goes for House of Brews. We even went so far as to track down Buchanan’s personal email address, to no avail. All we really wanted to know was, “now that you can self-distribute in Illinois, will you?”

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Despite not knowing what, if anything, these two breweries will do with the right to self-distribute its worth noting nonetheless. After all, the whole reason there was that whole Save the Craft thing and the big to-do over SB 754 a few years ago was because a federal judge determined Illinois was treating out-of-state brewers unfairly at the time because they couldn’t self-distribute in Illinois but in-state brewers could.

So now out-of-state brewers can. And the first two to have a crack at it are House of Brews and Frankenmuth. But will they?

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Ryan

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Equal parts beer nerd and policy geek, Ryan is now the curator of the Guys Drinking Beer cellar. The skills he once used to dig through the annals of state government as a political reporter are now put to use offering unique takes on barrel-aged stouts, years-old barleywines and 10 + year verticals.

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