Whether farm breweries are out in the country or right downtown, state licenses for them depend on flexible benchmarks for local ingredients. There are lessons to be learned for any state considering similar privileges for breweries that aim to buy local.
For years, most breweries in New York state would have had a big, red circle drawn around a specific date: January 1, 2024.
That’s the date that the state’s licensed farm breweries would have been required to have at least 90 percent of their ingredients (by weight) grown within the state. Given that 338 of the state’s 535 breweries hold a farm-brewery license—a full 63 percent of them—enforcing that date would have spurred a major shift in the state’s brewing supply chain.
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