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For Massachusetts breweries, Gov. Charlie Baker’s reopening timeline won’t help much
Updated Mar 02, 2021;
By Jessica Bartlett | Boston Business Journal
Businesses throughout the state may be able to bring in more customers as of Monday, and later this month up to 100 people may be allowed at private events, but for local breweries and taprooms, profits will continue to be hard to come by.
Massachusetts brewery owners say the latest slackening of economic restrictions is incremental at best, and the rules that remain in place put so much pressure on profitability, some aren’t planning to reopen their taprooms at all.
Last month it was reported that one of the biggest breweries in the region has canceled its plans to expand to another city, but now we have learned that it will be expanding to the western suburbs of Boston via a collaboration with a gaming company. According to an article from the Natick Report, Night Shift Brewing is teaming up… Massachusetts Oct 2, 2019
Amazon customers can now head to the Natick Mall in Massachusetts to shop for highly-rated products in person. Amazon 4-Star is a brick-and-mortar store offering products with four-star or higher ratings on the e-commerce giant’s website. There are five Amazon 4-Star stores in the U.S.; the Natick location is the first in the Greater Boston area.
The Patriots aren’t in the Super Bowl this year, but Tom Brady sure is which means we’re settling into our well-worn couches, stocking up on Super Bowl food, and tuning in to watch the Kansas City Chiefs take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this Sunday.
While plenty of football fans may have previously celebrated the Super Bowl at a bar, standing shoulder-to-shoulder while pitchers of beer were passed to tables filled with nachos and wings, the pandemic will have most people snacking in front of their own TVs during Super Bowl LV. And, as they have throughout this past year, chefs will be boxing up food so fans can enjoy tender wings and cheesy nachos at home.
For 50 years in Massachusetts, craft breweries have lacked the power to easily jump from one wholesaler to the next because of a law, written when their industry did not exist, binding them to lifetime contracts.
Distributors have held sway, empowered to a level where they can buy and sell craft beer brands without say from the brewers.
No longer.
At 3:26 a.m. Jan. 6, hours before the end of the 2020 legislative session, the House passed a bill that allows brewers producing fewer than 250,000 barrels a year 99% of the breweries in the state to end their relationship with a distributor as long as they give 30 days’ notice and pay “fair market value” for their brand rights. The bill goes to Gov. Charlie Baker to sign into law.