Ohio wipes out ABV limit on beer

Credit: Laura Bischoff

Credit: Laura Bischoff

Beer sold in Ohio will no longer have a 12-percent cap on the alcohol-by-volume, if Gov. John Kasich signs House Bill 37 into law.

The bill, which cleared its final legislative hurdle on Wednesday, will allow breweries to roll out the barrel on boozier brews. Any beer with more than a 12-percent ABV will have to be labeled high alcohol content, according to the bill.

Joe Waizmann, co-founder and president of Warped Wing Brewing Company in downtown Dayton, has said he favors eliminating the alcohol restriction on beer, even though beers that are brewed with 12 percent or more alcohol “are extremely difficult to produce and represent a small fraction of total annual production” of the nation’s breweries.

“Any move to provide a broader range of beers to Ohioans would be a positive step,” Waizmann said.

Ohio's current alcohol limit may have been one reason California-based Stone Brewing skipped over Ohio in favor of Virginia in 2014 when it was searching for a suitable location for a production brewery in the eastern half of the U.S.

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