The big news from the world of fermentation is that Cuomo signed a Farm Brewery bill in January. The good news about this is that the rules for a Farm Brewery are much more relaxed than for other microbreweries. The Farm Brewery commits to using a certain percentage of NYS grown hops and grain/malt, initially a small amount that increases over the next ten years to about 90%. Yhe farm brewery doesn’t not have to grow the ingredients, just has to source them from NY growers. This is a really great step towards moving away from huge monopolies and building a vibrant local interdependent economy.
If you are interested in details of the Farm Brewing bill you can check them here:
http://www.weblaws.org/new_york/laws..._law_sec._51-a
It means, for example, that if I get a farm brew license I can sell on premises or deliver my beer or another farm brewery’s beer to a wholesale or retail outlet, I can do tastings on or off premises, and sell for consumption on premises, have 5 satellite locations (points of sale) that don’t need to brew. It essentially allows me tremendous freedom to produce, market, sell, and distribute my beer as long as I produce less than 60 Mbbl annually. That would be about 164 barrels a day if I brewed 7 days a week and had a 200 bbl brewery. My plan is to start with a 10 or 15 bbl system and produce 3 batches a week.
That’s the plan.
Gotta do the divorce first, sort out my house, and custody. The Brewery is on the back burner, but still on the stove!