LAKEWOOD, NJ — A craft brewery in Lakewood is helping to lead the fight against “unbalanced and unjust” New Jersey rules for brewery licenses by creating a beer recipe to help fund the fight.
Icarus Brewing of Lakewood and the Brewers Guild of New Jersey have joined to launch Brew Jersey, a craft beer-turned-collaborative project to support efforts to change tight restrictions on New Jersey’s craft breweries.
The restrictions were spelled out in a special ruling issued in May 2019 by the state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control. Enforcement of the ruling was delayed until July 2022.
Among the restrictions that craft brewers oppose are limits on the number of events a brewery can host, with just 25 special events such as live music or trivia nights; a maximum of 52 private events such as weddings or private parties; no collaboration with food trucks or vendors to sell food for consumption at the brewery; and just 12 permits per year to participate in events such as community parades and festivals. They also are not allowed to sell coffee or soda on the premises, under the special ruling.
In issuing the ruling, ABC officials said they interpreted the 2012 state law creating the limited brewery licenses as having the goal of promoting selling the beer through existing retail options such as liquor stores and restaurants.
“The Division also believed that, because limited breweries were explicitly prohibited from selling food or operating a restaurant … the Legislature clearly did not intend … to establish a new consumption venue at a brewery, with the same privileges as a sports bar or restaurant,” the ruling said.
The Brewers Guild has said the regulations jeopardize the viability of small businesses as well as the future of craft beer.
The ABC rules “are making it harder for breweries, not only to grow, but to survive. Each day these rules persist, New Jersey breweries are stripped of their ability to compete in the marketplace and the opportunity to innovate in their industry,” the guild says on the Brew Jersey website, which was created to promote the collaboration among craft breweries and share its position with the public.
“It’s clear that these rules, supposedly meant to ‘balance interests’, are not balanced at all,” the website statement says. “New Jersey’s craft beer industry has grown by leaps and bounds in the last decade, only to see it now because of artificial and arbitrary limits. These regulations stand to serve the purpose of some, but clearly not those who matter to us the most : craft beer fans everywhere.”
Icarus Brewing developed the open-source recipe, and similar to the project in March where breweries in the United States brewed Ukranian beers to support the resistance to the Russian invasion, craft breweries around New Jersey and across the country are producing Brew Jersey, complete with the project’s label template, to raise awareness.
There have been 38 breweries in five states that have committed to brewing their own batch and donating part of the proceeds, the group said, including ones in North Carolina, Vermont and New York.
As of December, seven breweries have released their initial batch of Brew Jersey: Icarus Brewing; Brix City Brewing at Little Ferry; Flounder Brewing Co. of Hillsborough; Heavy Reel Brewing Co. at Seaside Heights; Death of the Fox at Clarksboro; Wild Air Beerworks at Asbury Park and Wet Ticket Brewing at Rahway. The remaining coming out in the next few weeks and into early 2023.
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.
Death of the Fox Brewery also filed a lawsuit against the state in September, with its attorneys, the Pacific Legal Foundation, calling the rules “a transparent attempt to favor one kind of business—bars and restaurants—over another—craft breweries.” read more: Craft Brewery Takes NJ To Court Over ‘Unlawful’ Limits On Industry
A bipartisan group of New Jersey legislators had introduced bills that would remove some of what the guild says are the most onerous regulations. read more: ‘Unreasonable’ Microbrewery Rules Would Be Lifted Under New NJ Bills
So far those bills — S2990/A4518, S3038/A4630, S3042/A4637 — remain in committee.
Each can label of Brew Jersey has a QR code that directs its consumers to the project’s website, which explains the craft breweries’ perspective and gives release dates for breweries producing Brew Jersey.
“Since Guild members, like all craft breweries in New Jersey, make some of the most innovative beer brewed in our country, it makes a ton of sense to use the medium they know best in a new, creative way to spread the word and cause the change needed to improve the regulatory landscape for New Jersey craft beer,” Eric Orlando, executive director of Brewers Guild of New Jersey, told Insider NJ. The Guild currently has 41 brewery members and 31 allied partners.