Morris-Area Brewery Supports Fight Against Unjust NJ License Rules

MORRISTOWN, NJ — Breweries across New Jersey are banding together to fight New Jersey rules for brewery licenses, which have resulted in tight restrictions on New Jersey's craft breweries.

Double Tap Brewing in Whippany is one of the many breweries that has collaborated with the Brewers Guild of New Jersey to serve a craft beer-turned-collaborative project to support efforts to loosen restrictions on New Jersey's craft breweries.

The collaboration, spearheaded by the Brewers Guild of New Jersey and Icarus Brewing Company in Lakewood, asks each participating brewery to pledge a percentage of their Brew Jersey profits to the Brewers Guild of New Jersey to help fund the fight.

According to the group, 42 breweries in five states have committed to brewing their own batch and donating a portion of the proceeds, including those in North Carolina, Vermont and New York.

Each brewery that produces Brew Jersey is asked to donate 25 percent of the proceeds from their version to the Brewers Guild of New Jersey to support the fight.

Double Tap Brewing will begin selling Brew Jersey sometime in January or early 2023.

Each Brew Jersey can label will contain a QR code that directs consumers to the project's website, which explains the craft breweries' point of view and provides release dates for all breweries producing Brew Jersey.

The restrictions on New Jersey's craft breweries were outlined in a special ruling issued by the state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control in May 2019, but enforcement was delayed until July 2022.

The special rule restricts businesses to 25 on-site events and 52 private parties per year. Each company is allowed to attend up to 12 off-site events. Prior to the ruling, breweries could hold an unlimited number of events.

Breweries must also provide walking or virtual tours of their facilities before serving beer to customers, and they are no longer permitted to collaborate with food trucks or vendors or serve coffee.

ABC officials stated in issuing the ruling that they interpreted the 2012 state law creating the limited brewery licenses as having the goal of promoting beer sales through existing retail options such as liquor stores and restaurants.

"It’s clear that these rules, supposedly meant to 'balance interests', are not balanced at all," the guild says on the Brew Jersey website. "New Jersey’s craft beer industry has grown by leaps and bounds in the last decade, only to see it now systematically stifled by artificial and arbitrary limits."