While seeing how beer is made is a fun part of visiting a brewery, the opposite is said for seeing how laws are made. However, as the number of breweries in the country begins to rise so does the need for breweries and their guilds to work with lawmakers across the country to advance brewing industry interests.
Texas, while slow to embrace the current craft beer movement, has sought to catch up in recent years. The state now has more than 200 breweries, thanks in part to the loosening and changes in certain state laws that made it slightly easier for breweries to operate.
Scott Metzger, the owner and brewer at Freetail Brewing Co. in San Antonio recounted some of the hurdles he and others had to jump over to do business, in a recent episode of the Craft Beer and Brewing Magazine podcast. The craft brewing industry had a $4.5 billion impact on the Texas economy in 2016, contributing the equivalent of 26,506 full-time jobs, according to the guild.