Every microbrewery Web site I’ve come across has a splash screen, either asking you to verify your age or actually enter it in a Web-based form.
Is there a law that you have to be 21 years old just to even visit a brewery Web site?
CYA man. CYA.
A brewery website could be considered alcohol advertising, and advertising alcohol to minors is a no-no.
And very few teenagers would ever think to just enter a false birth date, anonymously, in order to gain access so it is an almost perfect solution.
I don’t know if its CYA through industry self-regulation or a law but it isn’t just microbreweries. This practically foolproof age verification system is on almost every alcohol or tobacco company’s web site that I try.
A Google for “you must be of legal drinking age to enter this site” results in 1,770,000 results.
There isn’t a law and the brewing companies want to keep it that way.
So there’s an informal agreement that in exchange for not having alcohol advertisements officially regulated, brewing companies agree to voluntarily follow certain guidelines. And one of those is not knowingly advertising to minors.
Stay thirsty, my friend.
our local small breweries check the ID of everyone who visits no matter how old you look.
Sure, minors see advertisements but the argument is that the ads are aimed at adults.
Some companies may skirt the (admittedly vague) line. Budweiser, for example, had their Spuds MacKenzie campaign in the eighties and did a lot of advertising on MTV in the nineties. In both cases, critics said that these ads were clearly aimed at teenagers. Budweiser denied this but when the pressure got serious (questions from FTC officials and Congressmen) Budweiser dropped both ad campaigns.