I mentioned this previously, but only one distributor in the entire state stocked up on over 6% beer prior to our bill being signed into law, and that distributor serves the greater Birmingham area. It was a high risk, high reward scenario. There was never any guarantee our bill would be signed into law before Riley’s signature was in place. If we hadn’t succeeded this year, any distributor with >6% beer in their warehouse would have had to ship it back to the breweries at considerable expense.
But now their somewhat risky move is paying off. We did succeed, and Birmingham Beverage has delivered the very first shipments of high gravity beer ever sold in Alabama. Today many of us flocked to the Westerns in Mountain Brook and Vestavia to clear their shelves of new shipments, and the Piggly Wiggly on Clairmont stocked up, too. I also heard Blackwell’s Pub got some new beers in. Tomorrow, the J. Clyde will have an impressive array of new bottled beers and Friday they will have many new beers on draught.
That’s all because one distributor went out on a limb. But most didn’t. So in most of the rest of the state, you’ll still have to wait at least a couple weeks. Sympathy for everyone who isn’t benefiting from that gamble, but you’ll have the good stuff soon enough.
In Birmingham, though, today was a very, very good day.