Mayor Muriel Bowser has proposed several changes to make it easier for local alcohol manufacturers to sell their wares, including allowing wineries and distilleries to ship products directly to consumers and raising the allowable amount of alcohol in wine. They would be the latest in a slew of legislative changes over the past eight years that have allowed craft breweries, wineries, and distilleries to flourish in D.C. after five dry decades.

“Before DC Brau, we didn’t really have any breweries or wineries or distilleries in the District,” says Fred Moosally, the director of the District’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration. “The laws changed to make this a good place to do business for people who are manufacturing alcohol.”

After the city’s last brewery closed in 1956, D.C.’s modern beer invasion began in 2011. As DC Brau, Chocolate City Beer, and 3 Stars Beer opened their doors, lawmakers started passing legislation to make the industry run smoother. Really basic things that we now take for granted, like letting breweries have tasting rooms and allowing retailers to fill growlers, were only introduced that same year.

In the ensuing decade, the city passed laws allowing breweries to sell pints and have outdoor seating areas, letting distilleries serve alcohol at on-site pubs, expanding the kinds of containers that manufacturers can use to sell to consumers, and allowing for products made in collaboration between companies.

With the Manufacturer and Pub Permit Parity Amendment Act of 2019, Bowser is now proposing a series of tweaks that continue to respond to the city’s evolving craft alcohol scene, particularly its burgeoning cider scene.

For one, it would allow for higher-proof wines (cider is considered a wine under federal and local law)—raising it from 15 percent to 21 percent.

“We have several wine pubs currently that would like to make cider that’s slightly more than 15 percent alcohol by volume. We thought it made sense to bring the District in line with other jurisdictions currently,” Moosally says. Wine can be up to 24 percent alcohol under federal law, 22 percent under Maryland law, and 21 percent in Virginia, Moosally says.

The new legislation would also allow wineries and distilleries to ship their products directly to consumers (currently only breweries can do so.) It would allow products that are made in collaboration with another manufacturers to be sold in the large aluminum cans known as crowlers (collaboration products can currently only be sold in glass growlers). And it allows wine, brew, and distillery pubs to be located within 600 feet of their manufacturing facilities, even if its not immediately adjacent.

The law also clarifies what the mayor’s office called a “gray area”: home winemakers and beer brewers don’t need a license, as long as products are only for personal consumption.