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So I was talking to an ex-pat friend of mine in the US today and he was bemoaning missing local beverages (nameley Bathams and Enville Ale for those local who'll understand). Unfortunately due to the great orange wonder's changes to the immigration system he can't pop back for a quick pint until he has his Citizenship finalised (he's been there 5years ish and is still in immigration limbo).
Anyway I was going to parcel up one of those mini Kegs (5litres ish) of Enville and some bottles of Bathams and ship them. Obviously for most couriers shipping Alcohol is up there with trying to ship Uranium, and airfreight is out anyway as it's a pressurised canister. Also somewhat weighty. So I had got as far as surface/sea freight and part container / Part Pallet shipping and decided the STW hive mind would probably know.
What say thee O great knowledgable ones?
Cheers!
(Import tax on the US is $1-2 dollars/litre apparently for beer. So that shouldn't be a massive issue the other end.)
You can't.
All food and drink imported into the US needs to be packed in a FDA-approved facility.
That means a lot of paper work.
Beer trading with our US cousins is a pretty big thing, belgian lambics for american hops. Never done it myself but I would be very surprised if the parcels are being sent legitimately and some of the hauls Ive seen sent either way across the pond have been massive, what would 8 750cl bottle of beer weigh? 10 kilos?
Personally I'd chance it
You can’t.
All food and drink imported into the US needs to be packed in a FDA-approved facility.
That means a lot of paper work.
According to: https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/212/kw/mailing%20alcohol
you can import alcohol for personal use, you just can't send it through the postal system and you have to use a courier and appropriate duty is paid.
The difficulty is cost effectively shipping 8-10kg of beer, in glass bottles and/or a pressurised keg.
He really can’t find a new beer he likes? He isn’t trying hard enough.
Look for some of the specialist beer importers, you could get quite a lot of good stuff through specialist.
Or. Start home. Brewing
He really can’t find a new beer he likes? He isn’t trying hard enough.
+1. There’s loads of great beer in the USA.
Home brewing +1
There’s loads of great beer in the USA.
Depends where his friend lives, a lot of states have a monopoly on liquor stores so you can only buy whatever the state sells. Which is one of the reasons american beer had such a poor reputation for a long time, if small brewers couldn't get their beer on the shelves then all you could buy was Bud/Miller/Coors. Apparently its better than it was, but its still the equivalent of only being able to buy beer in Bargain Booze.
I’ve been to most of the US states and never failed to find a good micro brewery somewhere. I really see no point trying to ship anything to the US and as others have said it’s practically impossible if you are not a conpany
Did I read recently that the US is importing cask ales from the UK?
Anyway, it's likely to be a lot of expense/effort and somewhat disappointing. We can get keg versions of some beers here - Bombadier, etc (Youngs/Wells own some pubs in Brdeaux) but they're generally not worth the expense - I don't bother and that first pint of Bluebird in the Black Bull, Coniston is all the sweeter after a few years of anticipation!
Micro brewing and weird beers have exploded in the US. Every state (and town to some respect) has its own weird laws and way of selling booze so it does take some looking and then relooking
There are lots of british/irish pubs that import a small range of stuff like Guinness and recently I spotted Old Speckled Hen but as everyone has said just tuck into the local stuff. There's a fair amount of crap but lots of lovely stuff everywhere I've been in the past decade and it's fun searching out the latter 🙂