Pa. craft beer tax to go into effect in July 2019

PHILADELPHIA (WTXF) - Local breweries are big business, and they're popping up everywhere. But come next year, you'll have to pay more for that craft beer in Pennsylvania.

Six percent on every beer that slides across brew pub bars statewide starting July 2019. Harrisburg can call it what it will, but it sure feels like a new tax to Randy McKinley of Sly Fox Brewing in Pottstown. Brewery margins, he says, are tight.

"Whether its cost of yeast, whether its cost of malt, whether its cost of labor or food in your breweries. It's all about controlling costs. So for a brewery to absorb that additional tax, it's going to be impossible," he said.

Even when there's no canning going on, the brewery bustles. Kegs are cleaned and prepped, forklifts carry pallets of beer out to trucks and the pub itself is bustling--hot food is served along with cold beer that will cost $.35-$.50 more per pint this time next year.

A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue tells FOX 29's Hank Flynn that the tax is not new and that the obligation has always been there.

The department put out a sales tax bulletin in July "reestablishing" this obligation, the spokesman says.