In-state lab to offer alcohol content testing

West Virginia breweries will  now have another option to get their alcohol content testing done, according to an announcement by the Charleston Area Alliance for the South Charleston-based Mid-Atlantic Technology, Research & Innovation Center (MATRIC). MATRIC is starting to offer an alcohol content testing service for breweries.

The West Virginia Alcohol Beverage Control Administration (WVABCA) requires breweries to have each beer tested by a certified laboratory to verify its alcohol content before it can  be sold inside the state. WVABCA is worried that some breweries might try to sneak in a beer that exceeds the state’s legal 12 percent alcohol-by-volume cap. WVABCA generally will not accept the brewery’s own testing of alcohol level as sufficient.

Formerly, no laboratories in the state offered this service, so West Virginia breweries had to ship their beer samples out-of-state to obtain alcohol content certifications. Now, with the MATRIC laboratory offering alcohol content testing, breweries will have an in-state option, which may help speed up the testing process. However, breweries will still have to ship their samples to the lab and pay for testing, so the bottleneck continues.

The Charleston Area Alliance new release said the group assisted in making the connections that led to MATRIC offering this new service.

“Many West Virginia brewers were sending their samples out of state, ” said Matt Ballard, Charleston Area Alliance executive director. “Recognizing this testing could be provided in-state, the Alliance was able to link the breweries with MATRIC.”

Sam Mauzy, president of the West Virginia Craft Brewers Guild, said he was pleased with the connection made by the Charleston Area Alliance for this opportunity with MATRIC to improve the testing process and make it easier to get their products ready and to market.

“The availability of in-state testing services will help local brewers grow by expediting the delivery of new and distinctive beers to market,” said Mauzy.

Eliminate the cap

Advocates for West Virginia’s brewing industry have proposed eliminating the state’s alcohol cap on beer, as many other states have already done. This would be the only sure way to eliminate the need for alcohol content testing. To eliminate the cap the legislature would have to amend the current beer law. As an interim policy, the WVABCA could choose to accept the breweries’ own measurements of alcohol content as sufficient. All breweries have measuring equipment and the skill to provide an alcohol content measure.

So while it is nice to see an in-state laboratory offering this testing service, we would rather see the elimination of this testing requirement and free our small breweries from an unnecessary hurdle and costly, time-consuming process.