A Craft Beer Tax Battle Is Brewing On Capitol Hill

Congressman Patrick McHenry is a man who knows his beer. The refrigerator in his Capitol Hill office is filled to the brim with it. The Republican’s district includes the city of Asheville, N.C., which claims it has more breweries per capita than any other U.S. city.

“Brewers in my district are about not only about the sort of art of brewing, they’re about jobs,” he tells NPR over a few North Carolina beers. “So these are small business folks that are risk-takers, that are trying to take their art and make a living out of it. It’s a pretty cool thing.”

Small beer is big business, not just in McHenry’s district, but around the country.

“There are more craft breweries now than I think there were pre-Prohibition. We are a thriving and growing industry — 110,000 people across roughly 3,200 breweries across the country,” says Mari Rodela. She heads up the D.C. Brewers’ Guild and is the chief community and culture officer at D.C. Brau, which opened in 2009.

There’s even a Small Brewers Caucus in the House, which counted 142 members among its ranks as of last month, and a counterpart in the Senate. And its members have been busy. They’re pushing a bill that they say would cut taxes on beer and make it easier for small breweries to hire more workers and brew more beer… CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY AT NPR