When we talked to TABC around the start of the year they told us to come back once we completed the federal TTB approval. So we waited until we were closer to approval to set up a meeting.
Our first meeting was about licensing. We explained our plans and they helped us determine which licenses best fit those plans. We decided it would be the Manufactures Permit and Manufactures Distribution permit. Together these let us self distribute to resale establishments such as bars, restaurants, and liquor stores. We can also sell on location via tours or tap room. The biggest downside is we cannot produce beer over 4%ABW (about 5% ABV). There is also a size limit to how much we can distribute, but it is much larger than we plan to be for quite a while.
In Texas malt beverages over 5% ABV are ale and below is beer. To produce beer you need the manufactures permit and to produce ale you need the brewers permit. Each having its own self distribution license. While we are able to get all 4 permits and produce everything, our wallet will not allow it. These permits are not cheap and they recur every other year creating more overhead costs.
For TABC the cost to manufacture and self distribute beer is $2901.00 every two years. The cost to brew ale and self distribute ale is $4326.00 every two years. So for us to have both would be $7227.00 every two years or $3613.50 a year. That is just for the permission to brew and sale. There are still other taxes when the beer is produced. When we want to expand to sell on premise we will need even more licenses.
One of the odd requirements to get licensed is to get a legal notice in a local newspaper. Which means we had to call the caller times since we have no other major paper, that we know of. That cost us $186.00 for two sentences that no one will ever read. Worst ROI for an advertisement ever?
We also found out that on the forms we have to get a bunch of signatures from city officials. This caught us by surprise and caused us a lot of delays in being able to apply. Read more about the city problems.
