Brewer’s Blog

Tap NY 2016 is in the books!

April 24th, 2016 • by Paul Leone

110 NYS breweries gathered at Hunter Mountain once again this year. Many thanks to Danny Picket and David Kukle with Hunter Mountain, and Nat Collins and Bill Woodring the founders of Tap for their $5495 donation to the NYSBA, we sincerely appreciate your continued support!      

ESD is offering interest-free loans of up to $50,000

April 22nd, 2016 • by Paul Leone

ESD is offering interest-free loans of up to $50,000 for Distilled and Fermented Beverage industry businesses to promote New York State’s thriving beverage industry on a global scale. Companies must apply to ESD for these loans. To apply, click here. 

Top 5 TTB Application Tips

April 20th, 2016 • by Paul Leone

by John Szymankiewicz April 19, 2016 Related Topics: TTB, Legal, Finance Learn to successfully navigate the application process.   Understanding the approval process will help get your business up and running faster. As an attorney working almost exclusively with craft beverage producers, I get a lot of questions about the Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) application process.  I often think of […]

Zoning Amendments Make Way for Farm to Pint Glass…

• by Jesse Hiney

The Town of Brookhaven and several other municipalities across the state have recently amended certain zoning provisions to authorize the brewing of beer, cider, wine and other spirits on farmland. The amendments approved by the Town of Brookhaven in February 2016 incentivize the use of locally grown (in this case, on-site) ingredients similar to the […]

3 Important Insurance Considerations for Commercial Breweries

April 14th, 2016 • by Joe Gresia

How do you intend to interact with the general public? Will you offer brewery tours or have a tasting room? Both of these elements, while great for marketing and generating growth, come with their share of risk, and need to be considered when purchasing insurance. Fortunately, most general liability policies will cover this exposure, but […]

Governor Cuomo Announces Alcoholic Beverage Control Law Working Group Recommendations

April 13th, 2016 • by Paul Leone

Below is the summary of the Work Groups findings. Serving on the committee for the NYSBA were Steve Hindy, Co-Founder of Brooklyn Brewery, Nick Matt, FX Matt Brewing, and NYSBA Executive Director, Paul Leone. Please read below. Recommendations to update New York’s alcohol laws include reorganizing statute, consolidating licenses and modernizing the State’s Blue Laws […]

Another employer violates the law for disciplining an employee over social media posts

April 4th, 2016 • by Joe Carello

In what is becoming a common theme for employers, an administrative law judge recently ruled that Chipotle violated the National Labor Relations Act after it disciplined and fired an employee for his social media posts. The employee, an hourly food prep and food service worker at a Chipotle location in Pennsylvania, posted tweets complaining of […]

Tasting Room Packaging – Are You Ready?

March 31st, 2016 • by Brendan Ryan

The beauty of the spring season is finally upon us. I am sure that most of us in the industry would agree that with the improved weather, folks are more willing to embark on craft brewery tours. All of us would agree as members that Craft Beer tourism is an essential engine of growth for […]

How to Achieve Consistent Branding – Brand Recognition

March 29th, 2016 • by Dailey Crafton

The design of a brewery’s visual brand identity plays an extremely important role in the marketing and promotions of a brewery and its beer. The visual brand identity is all of the “seen” elements of a brand. In the case of a brewery, it’s things like a logo or word mark, packaging, labels, promo materials, […]

Crafting sustainability in your brew

February 10th, 2016 • by Rick Marx and Elaine Enfonde

Food waste has become a hot-button issue, and restaurants, grocery chains, food processing companies, municipalities and the federal government are adopting strategies for reducing it. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency (“USEPA”) called for a 50 percent reduction of the country’s food waste by the year 2030. According to the USEPA, more than “34 million tons […]