Last May, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon signed into law a controversial bill that allowed restaurants to sell draught beer in growlers as long as the establishment had 45 tap handles and derived 50% of their business from food sales.  Without getting into the controversial political aspects of the bill, the provisions pretty much only allowed for a single restaurant in Missouri to sell growlers for off-premises consumption.

Well, the Missouri Legislature is back in session and an amendment to the original law has been proposed in the Missouri House of Representatives.  House Bill HB1355 is an amendment that reduces the amount of draught beer necessary from 45 to 20.  This is a big step as it would increase the number of places locally that could allow for growler sales.

But, without the food provision being removed it would also keep a lot of places from allowing off-premises sales.  So, it’s time for us all to take action.  Write and call your legislators, let them know that you want to have this bill changed to allow for more places in St. Louis to enjoy growler sales.

Don’t know who your legislator is?  Luckily, Missouri has made it easy for you to find out.  Get out there and make your voice heard.

The readers of STL Hops are getting a chance to pick a draught line up at the International Tap House. But you could be the lucky winner to pick five draught beers of your choice to be served at the STL Hops iTAP Draft Party.

All you need to do is email contest@stlhops.com with the subject of “Five Taps at iTAP”.

I want to thank Sean and Brad from iTAP for putting on something as cool as this event. This contest will end on January 19th at 9AM CDT when I will pick a winner at random. A couple of quick notes:

• If you’ve won something from STL Hops in the past 6 months, please be cool and let someone else enter.
• You much be 21 or older to enter.
• No multiple entries.

If you don’t win this one, don’t worry I will be holding more contests like this in the future, so you’ll have another chance then. Good luck!

Can you believe it’s almost been a year?  As of January 31st, the International Tap House will be a year old.  That’s a huge accomplishment for a new business.

The best part is they’re planning on putting on a ton of parties to celebrate their birthday. Maybe I’m just partial, but I think the best party of all is that they’re putting on an STL Hops Draft Party!

What’s an STL Hops Draft Party you ask?  Well, it’s a thank you from Brad and Sean to STL Hops for helping to make iTAP so successful.  The way they’re thanking us is pretty awesome.

You guys get to pick what beers are going on draft. They’re giving us 35 tap handles to put whatever beer we want on for the party. Basically, it’s your chance to own your own bar for a night.

What would you do if you had 30 different beers to pick for your own bar?  Wait, didn’t I just say 35?  I did, but we’re going to run a contest starting tomorrow which will allow one reader to pick any 5 beers they want. Stay tuned for that.

So, the best way for STL Hops to pick the beers is for each person to list 3 beers they’d like to see in the comment section below.  A couple of rules:

• Obviously you can’t pick beers from breweries that don’t distribute in Missouri. (Stone, Dogfish Head, etc.)
• Some beers aren’t available on draught. (La Fin Du Monde comes immediately to mind.)
• We can’t always get what we want. (They can try to get it in, but no promises.)

This party will be taking place on Saturday, February 6th from 4PM-7PM.  I’ll post more information as I get it.  Start suggesting away and we’ll all own the bar for one night.

They’re puurrrty.