Most home brewers and wine makers in Washington are not aware of the state regulations which regulate your transportation of beer and wine. RCW 66.12.010 creates the opening for producing home wine and beer without a license and RCW 66.28.140 provides limitations for transporting it out of the house of production. What it boils down to is:
- You can't transport home wine or beer out of the house except for competitions
- You can only take out 1 gallon at a time for the competitions
- Only judges or the person producing the wine or beer can consume it (and it has to be consumed for judging)
- Leftovers have to be sent home
Essentially, the following things are not allowed:
- Giving home beer or wine to a friend
- Taking home beer or wine to a dinner at someone's house
- Non-judging consumption of home beer or wine at a club meeting
- Transporting a keg of home beer or wine
- Any kind of community home wine or beer tasting
While not actively enforced, these laws make it extremely difficult to organize "legal" events and work with places like hotels or convention centers to host events. Even breweries and wineries are sticking their neck out for us hosting events. It puts us all in a condition where we may be one incident away from a crack-down.
Consequently, the recently formed Washington Homebrewers Association has taken on spearheading the effort to get the laws changed with the following goals:
- Phrase legislature to support the hobbies of homemade beverage production
- Allow for more community events
- Remove as many limits on the transportation of homemade beer or wine as possible
- Phrase legislation as to equally cover beer and wine (wording is inconsistently wine heavy).
- Provide best definitions for homemade beverages (possibly aligned with national code)
Tom Schmidlin from the Cascade Brewers Guild and I recently met with Arlen Harris from the Washington Beer Commission (essentially "the" beer lobbyist in Washington) to draft up initial legislation that will open the door to legalizing home brew and wine meetings, events with tastings not resticted to judges and the producer, and sharing of home beer and wine. It would also allow us to land the National Homebrewers Conference eventually. The goal was to provide a chance to RCW 66.28.140 which would provide the Liquor Control Board and possible opposition that home beer and wine would not be flowing freely in the streets, but also allow us to conduct all of our needed activities.
Arlen discussed our proposal with a member of the liquor control board and the initial sentiment is that they can't see too many problems with the proposal. Great initial news!
In the upcoming 3/4 year, we are going to need to start really rallying the troops for a coordinated joint push. We need folks from all over to be contacting legislators, both in person and through letters and e-mail. We need to present a clear and consistent vision and show how this is going to be a good thing for Washington. We'll be getting some materials put together and hopefully getting a tool built into the website to help this, but we really need to get all members of all clubs throughout the state ready to push. In particular, we are going to be looking at picking a day in early February to have a coordinated presence down in Olympia. Getting as many people from all over the state will be key in this effort. Please start thinking now about helping to coordinate a trip with your members down to Olympia to stand up for your hobby and really make an impact. This is a chance to get rid of some overly restrictive laws and let our hobby really shine.
So, get ready and get motivated to change Washington homebrewing and winemaking.
Cheers!
Mark
Original RCWs
RCW 66.12.010
Wine or beer manufactured for home use.
Nothing in this title other than RCW 66.28.140, applies to wine or beer manufactured in any home for consumption therein, and not for sale.
RCW 66.28.140
Removing family beer or wine from home for exhibition or use at wine tastings or competitions - Conditions.
(1) An adult member of a household may remove family beer or wine from the home for exhibition or use at organized beer or wine tastings or competitions, subject to the following conditions:
(a) The quantity removed by a producer for these purposes is limited to a quantity not exceeding one gallon;
(b) Family beer or wine is not removed for sale or for the use of any person other than the producer. This subparagraph does not preclude any necessary tasting of the beer or wine when the exhibition or beer or wine tasting includes judging the merits of the wine by judges who have been selected by the organization sponsoring the affair; and
(c) When the display contest or judging purpose has been served, any remaining portion of the sample is returned to the family premises from which removed.
(2) As used in this section, "family beer or wine" means beer or wine manufactured in the home for consumption therein, and not for sale.
Proposed Change to RCW 66.28.140
RCW 66.28.140
Removing homemade beer or wine from home for exhibition or use at events or competitions or as a gift - Conditions.
(1) An adult member of a household may remove homemade beer or wine from the home for exhibition or use at organized beer or wine events or competitions.
(2) An adult member of a household may gift to an individual for noncommercial use or consumption of up to 20 gallons per annum of homemade beer or wine. This does not allow a person less than 21 years of age to possess, receive as a gift, or give homemade beer or wine.
(3) As used in this section, "homemade beer or wine" means beer or wine manufactured in the home for consumption therein, and not for sale.