OLCC bans home brew outside the house

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July 12, 2010 by fhsteinbart

The OLCC has recently ruled on the legality of bringing home brew (beer or wine) out of the house. The ruling is you “you can’t”.  If you want to bring a case of your latest IPA to your buddies wedding… well legally speaking you aren’t really supposed to do that. If you want to bring a keg of Saison to your neighbors barbecue… yeah you can’t do that either.  If you want to bring some growlers on a camping trip… you guessed it. Currently in the state of Oregon you could be prosecuted with a Class A Misdemeanor for performing any of the aforementioned activities. This also means that homebrew cannot be served at homebrew club meetings or be judged in homebrew competitions. In fact, as the law stands it is not even legal to mail entries to home beer and wine competitions outside of the state.

It is important to remember that home brewers and wine makers are and have been integral to the craft beer and wine industry explosion in our state. This is a multi billion dollar industry and one of the few that is still growing in our current economic recession. Steinbart’s alone provides about a dozen jobs. Widmer Bros Brewing employs far more Oregonians and they started their craft as home brewers and founding members of a home brew club that can no longer serve home brew or host home brew competitions. We encourage you to write your state representatives and encourage them to modify this law.