Mass. brewers settle long-running dispute with distributors
Courtesy | Jack's Abby Craft Lagers
The beer hall at Jack's Abby in Framingham, photographed before the coronavirus pandemic
The Massachusetts Brewers Guild and the Beer Distributors of Massachusetts have reached an agreement aimed at ending a 10-year dispute over how easily craft breweries can switch distributors, the groups announced on Saturday.
Both groups agreed to support a bill to allow breweries producing less than 250,000 barrels in a calendar year to end a relationship with a distributor with 30 days’ notice, at any time, according to a joint press release.
“This legislation is a victory for the more than 200 craft breweries across Massachusetts,” said Sam Hendler, president of the Massachusetts Brewers Guild and co-founder of Framingham-based Jack’s Abby Craft Lagers, in a statement.
The bill is the move away from the law where breweries essentially were locked into a long-term deal with a single distributor, once the brewery picked a distributor. The law was established when the market was dominated by a handful of national breweries, and their changing distributors could disrupt a single distributor's entire revenue stream. As the beer market has increasingly become diverse with smaller craft breweries, being locked into a long-term deal with a single distributor could hinder a brewery's growth prospects.
Both groups have long disagreed over proposed bills to legislate how breweries may end their relationships with their distributors, according to a press release.
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