Columbus, OH – On Wednesday, The Buckeye Institute released a new policy brief, Brewing Freedom: Ensuring the Freedom to Contract for Ohio’s Craft Brewers, urging Ohio lawmakers to free Ohio’s small craft brewers from the state’s anti-competitive alcohol franchise law that “disproportionately empowers distributors to the detriment of small craft brewers.”

“Ohio’s award-winning craft beer industry is suffering from the anti-competitive effects of the state’s 50-year-old alcohol franchise law,” said Greg R. Lawson, a research fellow at The Buckeye Institute and the author of Brewing Freedom. “While the Buckeye State’s craft brewers make some of the best beers in the world, Ohio lawmakers should brew some freedom and end the state’s onerous legal provisions that effectively create an ‘auto-renewal’ policy for contracts between brewers and distributors.”

In the brief, Lawson noted three specific problems with Ohio’s antiquated alcohol franchise law.

• The law undermines a would-be competitive market;
• Negates the market benefits of competition; and 
• Limits the freedom of brewers to act in their own best business interests. 

With the government’s thumb firmly on the scales, Ohio’s “law all but ensures that any small brewer inclined to dispute a distributor’s contract terms would find itself in court and at a significant financial disadvantage,” Lawson wrote.

Lawson urged lawmakers to change the law to “allow craft brewers to seek new distribution contracts as needed and allow distributors to sue brewers for breach of contract if necessary.”

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