Homebrew permit saw rise in final year

With Big Brew/National Homebrew Day just a month away, here's an interesting statistic concerning New Jersey's now-buried requirement that homebrewers get a permit to make beer in their backyards.

Last year, when the requirement was in its death spiral thanks to legislation moving through Trenton, there was a spike in the number of homebrewing permits issued by the state Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control, the agency that regulates all things dram in New Jersey.

From Jan. 1, 2011, to the last day of December, ABC issued 633 permits to make homebrew. That's more than twice the number issued for 2009, when ABC granted 299 permits, and 213 more than the year before (for 2010, the number was 420).

With the stroke of a pen on Jan. 9, 2012, Gov. Chris Christie turned the permit obligation into a footnote, freeing homebrewers from a near-paper tiger mandate that nearly all of them had been ignoring to begin with.

True to form, when word of the permit's demise got out, homebrewers didn't exactly take to the streets singing "Ding, dong, the witch is dead!" It was more like they yawned, and said, "Meh."

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Still, there were those who brewed at home who felt pressured to comply with the nearly 20-year-old regulation. They ponied up the $15 fee. Many others did so because they were partaking of the hobby through brew-on-premise shops, which, for reasons of protecting their businesses (and legitimately so), required patrons to apply for the permit before any brewing could take place.

What's more, BOPs probably accounted for last year's spike in the number of permits, given that there are at least two now operating in the state, Brewer's Apprentice, a fixture in the Freehold area since the mid-1990s, and Brew Your Own Bottle, a newer BOP and supply shop in Westmont in South Jersey. 

Like a lot of things surrounding craft beer, homebrewing is riding a wave of popularity, too.

The American Homebrewers Association, the national group that supports the hobby and sponsors Big Brew/National Homebrew Day, says its membership has crossed the 30,000 mark, a milestone for the organization that sprang from the 1978 legalization (technically, it's a federal tax exemption) of making beer at home.

The AHA also estimates that these days there are 1 million homebrewers in the United States and more than 1,000 homebrew clubs.

Big Brew this year will be observed on May 5, with homebrewers striking mashes simultaneously (or close to that) across the country, brewing from AHA-provided recipes (this year it's brown ale) or their own.

But the reality is, the event is a show of solidarity and camaraderie around the craft of making beer.

In New Jersey, there's an extra reason on Homebrew Day to raise glasses in a toast: Even though Gov. Christie's eliminating the permit obligation may seem like some pro-forma going through the motions,  it does provide some relevant cover for those who enjoy making and sharing their creations. New Jersey homebrewers can indeed say, "Ding, dong, that witch is dead."

Homebrew Competitions

The Tun Tavern is once again holding a pro-am homebrew competition, and Cricket Hill Brewing was planning another one toward the fall.

The entry deadline for the Tun Tavern's contest is Tuesday, May 1. And yeah, that's less than a month away, but this competition was announced weeks ago on homebrew forums, such as the Barley Legal Homebrewers, so consider this note a reminder. If you live in North Jersey, don't let the fact that this is in South Jersey keep you from entering. Well-made beer always wins.

Entries should be comprised of a six-pack or the equivalent of whatever style you're submitting, plus your contact information (email, cell phone number, land line ... just make it so you can be reached.)

Grand prize is a chance to scale up your winning recipe and brew a batch that will be served at the Tun's booth at the Garden State Craft Brewers Guild Festival, June 23 aboard the battleship USS New Jersey at the Delaware River waterfront in Camden. The prize also includes passes to the festival. The Tun's phone number is 609-347-7800.

As far as Cricket Hill's contest goes, we caught up with brewery co-owner Rick Reed at a Friday night tour and asked if they planned to hold another competition. If you remember, it was a homebrew competition that produced CH's nicely done Russian imperial stout, plus an IPA the brewery released just a couple weeks ago.

Rick says they plan to hold another contest, some time around or after August. Best bet is to mark your calendar and check with the brewery toward the end of July to see if their plans hatched in early spring are is the same in late summer.

NJ homebrew permit is dead. Kaput. Gone.

It's official: New Jersey homebrewers are no longer legally obligated to pony up 15 bucks to the state to make their beer.

Governor Chris Christie has signed legislation to eliminate the 21-year-old permit requirement that most homebrewers had said fuhgettaboutit to in the first place, either because they never knew about it, or they had reservations about getting the state involved in their lives and their much-loved hobby.

On Monday without comment, Governor Christie signed the legislation that was introduced in spring 2011. The signing is noted on the governor's web site, amid a collection of other bills also getting his signature that day.

(If you're a craft beer enthusiast in the Garden State, it's hard to ignore the fact that Chris Christie has been a friend to beer since taking office in 2010. Last May he signed a proclamation for American Craft Beer Week in New Jersey; his lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, made a trip to Flying Fish Brewing last fall; and now the elimination of the homebrewing permit. That's more than any governor has done to give beer a boost since craft brewing was sanctioned in New Jersey in 1993.)

Homebrewing has had the blessing of the federal government since thoroughbred horse racing last had a Triple Crown winner (Affirmed), when Congress exempted 200 gallons made for personal consumption from taxation. New Jersey lawmakers said yes to the hobby 13 years later, in 1991.

However, there was a catch to Trenton giving its blessing, something that New Jersey homebrewing enthusiast Ed Busch, at the time a member of the American Homebrewers Association board of governors, saw as an unavoidable trade-off for getting lawmakers to go along with the idea officially green-lighting people making beer at home. (It should be remembered that after Prohibition, states were given great authority to regulate alcoholic beverages within their borders, and that Alabama still does not allow homebrewing, while Oklahoma finally relented in 2010.)

Thus the permit was born in the same breath as Trenton's proclaiming that making up to 200 gallons of homebrew per year was legal (echoing the federal law), thus giving Garden State homebrewers cover from overzealous local code enforcement officers who wanted to play revenuer.

Joe Bair, who opened his Princeton Homebrew shop in 1995, on Tuesday applauded the end of the permit, saying Ed had always envisioned it being scrapped at some point. Sadly, Ed died about five years ago, never seeing his intuition play out as reality.

"Ed Busch said it would eventually get changed, and I'm sure he's happy in his grave that it has," Joe says.

The biggest problem with the permit law, Joe says, was never the $15 fee imposed on homebrewers, but rather their taking a hit on their rights against search and seizure. Getting a permit meant state alcoholic beverage regulators could pay a call on you whenever they wanted.

"People were surprised when they got their permits in the mail to find that out," Joe says.

To the state's credit, the Division of Alcoholic Beverage Control kept its distance from homebrewers. Still, the existence of the permit requirement, though often obscure, turned homebrewers who knew of the obligation into scofflaws when they ignored it.

"It wasn't because they didn't want to pay the money," Joe says. "It was they didn't want to give up their rights against search and seizure."