Peter Hoey and Rob Archie can drive across Sacramento to deliver their Urban Roots Brewery & Smokehouse beer to any business that wants it. Except, that is, their own restaurants.

California state law currently prohibits breweries from directly transporting beer to restaurants under the same ownership umbrella, though they can deliver to non-affiliated restaurants straightaway.

That’s set to change Jan. 1, 2023, after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 2301 into law on Sept. 30. Authored by Jim Wood, D-Eureka, the law allows breweries to ship their beer directly to their affiliated restaurants.

“From an environmental standpoint from cost-savings standpoint from beer quality standpoint, this is a win across the board for small producers,” Hoey said.

For the last two years, Urban Roots has driven its beer a half-mile straight to restaurants such as Burgers & Brew and The Shady Lady Saloon on R Street. To get suds flowing at Bawk, which sits between the two and is also owned by Hoey and Archie, the brewery has legally had to drive its beer to a licensed distributor in Concord, which then drives it back to Sacramento.

That distributor takes a 30% commission, and charges Urban Roots for the cost of freight transporting the beer back to Sacramento. Cutting out these distribution costs will save Urban Roots $40,000-$50,000 per year, Hoey said.

“It’s someone else I can hire to drive beer back-and-forth, literally,” Hoey said.

Breweries can currently deliver beer to their own taprooms, even taprooms with kitchens. But if it’s licensed as a restaurant first, they have to go through the third party.

If that process seems asinine, well, legislators thought so too. The state Assembly and Senate both unanimously passed AB 2301, sending it to Newsom, who built wealth through the alcohol industry since co-founding PlumpJack Winery in 1992.

Newsom also signed a sister bill, AB 2307, into law on Sept. 30. That law expands the number of California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control licenses (taprooms, essentially) a brewery can have, from six to eight as of the new year.

No Sacramento-based breweries are bumping up against that limit yet, but Berkeley-based Fieldwork Brewing Co., which has a midtown satellite location, would currently be capped without the increase.

Not that local breweries aren’t growing. Urban Roots plans to reopen a favorite East Sacramento burger joint as Cerveceria at The Shack within two or three weeks. It’s easier to visualize further expansion with the new financial relief from AB 2301, Hoey said.

“It really, really helps small businesses like mine to continue to grow and do so in a fiscally- and environmentally-friendly way,” Hoey said.