How does the PA liquor control board decide which beers can be sold in the state? I live in Pennsylvania, where the folks in charge cling desperately to the last vestiges of Prohibition, with a protection racket on the side.  What this means is that the state heavily regulates alcohol import and distribution.  Wine and hard alcohol can only be bought from stores run by the state, and beer is largely sold through licensed distributors.  (I'm not counting ordering single servings in bars/restaurants; that's a separate matter.)

I recently learned that PLCB (PA Liquor Control Board) has opinions on which beers can be sold in the state.  On a recent trip out of town I had a local beer that I liked, but it's not on the approved list so I can't buy it here.  This led me to wonder how PLCB decides -- is there some sort of certification they depend on, or does it depend on breweries paying a fee to sell in Pennsylvania, or what?  I could find nothing on their web site that explains how these decisions are made.

How does the PLCB decide what beers I'm allowed to buy here?
Here is a link to the application for for registering beer brands As you can see on the form, there is a fee of $75 for each "beer brand". They define a "brand" as an individual beer style.  No big deal if you are Miller/Coors/Bud, but a real hassle if you are a micro with a couple of dozen seasonal beers. Note that you also must list the "importing distributors with whom territorial agreements have been established". So, I can see that getting a foot in the door would be a daunting task for a small brewery. And once a brewery is established, the process starts over every time they develop a new beer.

You can thank Gifford Pichot for this mess. He was the prohibitionist governor of PA when prohibition ended, and he established the PA LCB and State Store system to "discourage the purchase of alcoholic beverages by making it as inconvenient and expensive as possible." Recent efforts to reform the system keep failing because there are too many entrenched interests making money off of the status quo.