New restaurants to open in Biddeford and Portland, a happy hour to help fire victims, and Ninety Nine restaurants in New England to serve Maine potatoes exclusively.
New restaurants to open in Biddeford and Portland, a happy hour to help fire victims, and Ninety Nine restaurants in New England to serve Maine potatoes exclusively.
“In Maine, we have one of the highest state excise tax rates, almost triple some of the New England states,” said Sean Sullivan, executive director the Maine Brewers Guild. “Add that to the production challenge of switching to predominantly canned beer, as well as shortages of aluminum cans, these were additional trends hurting the industry.”
In 2017, the American craft beverage industry got a break when a temporary federal law lowered the excise tax of $7 per barrel to $3.50 per barrel, which was set to expire on December 30, 2020.
“The risk was that as of January 1, that federal excise tax rate was going to go back up to $7 a barrel,” said Sullivan. “More than 25 breweries opened during the last three years that had never paid that amount per barrel, and hadn’t factored that into their costs. Picture yourself as a brewer, heading into a winter where you didn’t have a good economic summer, and then all of a sudden your taxes go up twice the amount you’re used t