Beer goggles (Photo by Afagen/Flickr)

After last month’s scare from the Massachusetts Alcoholic Beverages Control Commission, craft brewers in Massachusetts have gotten some good news from the state.

You might recall from Anna Pinkert’s earlier  report through PRK that the state alcohol commission announced a rule last month that Massachussetts’ craft beer brewers, who operate under a farmer-brewer license, must grow at least half of their beer’s hops and grain themselves, or get them from a local farm. After considerable protest from brewers, the rule was later reversed.

Now a different state agency — the Department of Agriculture — has proposed an approach to the same problem that is more of a carrot, not the alcohol commission’s original stick.

The ‘carrot’ comes in the form of a two-year project called “From Grain to Glass,” the goal of which is to find ways to facilitate connections between craft brewers and farmers in Massachusetts, plus increase the overall use of local ingredients by craft beer brewers in the state.  Find out more about the initiative from the Patriot Ledger’s Mass. Market blog.