Atlantic Beach Brewing shooting for April opening

[JohnnyG]

ere is also another brewpub called Southern Swells coming to Jax Beach.  Signage is up at the Beach Blvd. location in the shopping center just east of Shetter Ave. but I'm not sure when they are opening.

[Tacachale]

^^^ Thanks for the correction. I think RCBC used to be part of that group.  This also had me thinking about what effect state and local laws can affect a region's brewing scene. For example New York City and state have numerous craft breweries while across the river here in Jersey we have a few iconic ones and some new players but nothing like NY offers.

Yeah, local laws can affect things positively or negatively more than nearly anything else. In Florida, you couldn't sell 22oz bombers before 2001, and there were potentially other restrictions as well. As it severely limited how much revenue breweries could make, Florida had very few breweries before that. It wasn't until 2015 that they could sell half-gallon growlers (the most common size). Liberalizing the laws has caused the industry to mushroom since that time, though it's really only caught fire in Jax and Tampa Bay, though Miami is starting to come along.

New Jersey had notoriously awful laws for breweries until just a few years ago. I read that there are still only about 80 breweries in New Jersey, compared to nearly 300 in Michigan which has a similar population. In Georgia, breweries can't have tap rooms as they can in most if not all other states. That's a huge revenue generator for breweries, so the scene is restricted. In Tennessee until this year, there was a weird law where places couldn't serve or sell beer over 5% alcohol unless they had a liquor licence. So most of the breweries focused on less strong beer. In Massachusetts, there are lots of arcane bureaucratic laws that make it tough to open breweries and make any money at it. As such, places like Boston, Atlanta, and Nashville have pretty tepid brewing scenes even though the markets would probably lap it up.

The lesson is, if states want craft breweries, they need to stop listening to the macro brewery lobbyists and pass less restrictive legislation. It worked here in FL.

[thelakelander]

ere is also another brewpub called Southern Swells coming to Jax Beach.  Signage is up at the Beach Blvd. location in the shopping center just east of Shetter Ave. but I'm not sure when they are opening.

They open on January 28th!
https://www.facebook.com/Southernswells/