There was a kind of hope attached to Great Lakes Brewing’s foray into cannabis drinks when Float Shoppe cans—soon to hit 6,000 cases of production—began leaving their Strongsville warehouse in February.
A hope, co-CEO Christopher Brown, knew was needed for one of Northeast Ohio’s most storied craft brewers. After all, drinking tastes were changing. Mocktails and NA beers had seen surges where IPAs and pilsners used to dominate. Amid headwinds for the industry, Great Lakes had to lay off several workers. Float Shoppe, its four-pack “social soda” blended with five or 10 milligrams of Delta 9, would be its savior.
At least for the first two months. Until March 23, when a modified version of Senate Bill 56, the suite of marijuana regulations that relegated any intoxicating hemp gummies, drinks or candies to licensed dispensaries, went into effect. Gov. Mike DeWine used a line item veto to dispose of a provision that would have allowed breweries and bars to keep serving THC drinks through the end of the year.
Which to Great Lakes and dozens of other Ohio craft breweries that had pivoted, meant a hair-pulling contradiction.
“When you talk about the popularity of [THC beverages], it’s a driving force obviously within the industry,” Brown told Scene from Great Lakes’ offices in Ohio City. “And it’s the only thing that’s growing—the category that none of us can actually participate in.”
Craft brewers have been struggling in general in the past few years to manage a trend veering away from beer, while figuring out how to diversify without laying off staff. THC drinks, like Rhinegeist’s Fuzzy Bones or Saucy Brew Works’ Bloom, were pretty much budget savers in a tough era for family-run craft breweries. Globally, THC drinks amount to roughly a $2 billion industry.
For Great Lakes, Float Shoppe, was forecasted to bring in $4 million a year. That revenue would have been a solid offset to years of rising prices for canning, shipping and packaging.
“Everything THC was like whipped cream on a sundae,” Brown said. “It was all to profit.”
Since October, Brown and reps from a dozen other Ohio craft brewers have been lobbying state and federal officials to restore the legal ability for THC drinks to be made and sold in house. (The only way to try Float Shoppe currently is through an out-of-state retailer.)
Save Ohio Bevs, an advocacy group that hopes to channel the Ohio public’s burgeoning interest in THC beverages into the inboxes of congress persons themselves, launched a public effort on that front. As of Monday, the group’s collected 14,611 signatures.
Governor vetos can be overriden by a three-fifths majority in both the Ohio House and the Senate, yet typically only happen with a strong, consistent wave of public support. Lawmakers have until the end of the current General Assembly, on December 31, to decide on an override vote.
In a memo tied to his veto, DeWine framed his ban on intoxicating hemp drinks as a preemptive move eight months before Trump’s own federal ban goes into effect in November.
“The facts are that THC is not analogous to alcohol, is metabolized differently than alcohol, and does not intoxicate in the same way alcohol does,” he wrote in December. “This can mislead consumers into thinking these products will have the same effect on them as alcohol.”
“For these reasons, a partial veto is in the public interest,” he added.
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