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For Bill Jackson, owner of Wexford Beer, an independent beer distributor north of Pittsburgh, ordering ready-to-drink cocktails from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board can turn a routine delivery into a half-day’s work. Orders must be loaded one case at a time.
When Jackson orders beer, hard seltzers and flavored malt beverages from a private wholesaler, a truck pulls up to his loading dock, drops off a pallet by forklift, and a Wexford employee moves the product straight into the store. No fuss, no wasted trip.
Ordering canned cocktails through the state is another story. Direct delivery has traditionally required a minimum order of 20 cases and carried a $75 deliver fee. Pickup costs less but demands more time and labor.
A Wexford employee typically drives to the nearest state-operated Fine Wine & Good Spirits store, at the Village at Pine, about two miles away. The retail store has no forklift, and orders aren’t palletized. Jackson’s employees help state employees load the cases individually onto one or more pallets they bring from Wexford Beer and secure them with shrink wrap for the return trip.
“We have to put each individual case in the truck onto a pallet,” he said.
>>>READ MORE: Pa.’s liquor laws make popular canned cocktails more expensive
The same problem exists at the PLCB’s Licensee Service Center in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, another wholesale pickup location, Jackson said. The facility also lacks a forklift and does not prepare orders on pallets.
Elizabeth Brassell, the PLCB’s director of policy and communications, attributed the absence of a forklift to “a temporary interruption in forklift service related to an equipment malfunction that will be resolved as soon as the contractor can remediate.”
The underlying problem, Jackson said, is that these facilities were built for a different kind of customer: restaurants buying a few cases of wine or several bottles of liquor, not retailers ordering hundreds of cases of canned cocktails.
“They’re a retail operation,” Jackson said of the state stores. “They’re not designed to deal with this kind of volume.”
Jackson’s experience reflects a broader challenge for Pennsylvania’s alcohol industry. Ready-to-drink cocktails — canned beverages such as hard teas, spiked lemonades and vodka cocktails — are booming. But retailers and private distributors say the state’s wholesale system hasn’t kept pace.
The PLCB is promising changes, including lower delivery minimums and free delivery on larger orders. Industry critics say the problems run deeper.
The dispute is part of a larger shake-up in Pennsylvania’s alcohol market. As a previous NewsWorks Lab investigation documented, the explosive growth of ready-to-drink beverages — from hard teas and lemonades to sports-drink-style cocktails — is colliding with a state liquor system built for a different era.
The agency announced last week that, beginning in early 2027, it would lower the minimum order for direct delivery from 20 cases to 15. Orders of 15 to 39 cases will carry a $75 delivery fee; orders of 40 cases or more will qualify for free delivery. The PLCB has yet to announce an exact effective date.
The agency relies on third-party logistics contractors, including FedEx Supply Chain in western Pennsylvania, to deliver bulk orders through its Licensee Delivery Program. Retailers can also pick up orders at designated state locations, as Jackson does.
“We will continue to rely on our third-party logistics providers in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh for licensee deliveries,” Brassell said. “We are hopeful that by enticing more licensees to the Licensee Delivery Program we will achieve efficiencies by not fulfilling as many orders out of our retail stores.”
Jackson greeted the announcement with cautious optimism.
“They are starting to behave like a wholesaler!” he wrote in an email.
Frank B. Fuhrer III, CEO of Frank B. Fuhrer Wholesale Co., one of Western Pennsylvania’s largest privately owned beer distributors, isn’t convinced the changes address the underlying problem. He sees them as an attempt to quell criticism of a system never designed to handle this kind of business.
Fuhrer argues that the PLCB is an unnecessary middleman in the spirits-based RTD market. Private wholesalers, he says, already have the infrastructure, workforce and customer relationships to distribute the products more efficiently.
Frank B. Fuhrer Wholesale Co. distributes about 14.8 million cases of beer and malt beverages annually across 14 southwestern Pennsylvania counties. Its two distribution campuses and extensive warehouse space serve thousands of independent distributors, retailers, bars and restaurants.
For Fuhrer, a 500-case order is routine. His company makes weekly deliveries to customers, with sales representatives regularly visiting accounts and taking orders. Delivery is built into the wholesale relationship, he said, rather than treated as a separate service carrying an additional fee.
“Our customer base is frustrated, because if the RTD products came through us, they would be delivered alongside their regular beer order, with delivery included in the price,” Fuhrer said.
A 2024 state law, Act 86, opened the spirits-based RTD market to beer distributors and other retailers, expanding the number of outlets where canned cocktails could be sold. But it left the PLCB in control of the primary wholesale channel, largely shutting traditional private wholesalers out of supplying licensed retailers.
Beer distributors and importing distributors can obtain permits to sell spirits-based RTDs directly to consumers, but not to other licensed businesses. Qualifying Pennsylvania distilleries received a separate exemption allowing them to sell directly to licensed retailers.
The arrangement also gives the state control over which out-of-state products reach Pennsylvania shelves. Spirits-based RTDs, wine and spirits made outside Pennsylvania generally must enter the state through the PLCB, meaning consumers might have fewer choices than shoppers elsewhere in the country.
Private wholesalers can supply retailers with beer, hard seltzers and flavored malt beverages through established distribution networks, but they cannot use those same networks to deliver spirits-based canned cocktails. The PLCB retains the wholesale role even as private distributors argue they are better equipped to handle the business.
Fuhrer says the PLCB lacks the warehouse capacity, delivery infrastructure and sales force that established wholesalers bring to the market.
“The PLCB still doesn’t have their own delivery system; they have to go through FedEx,” Fuhrer said. “They don’t have their own sales reps calling on these distributor accounts. That’s our advantage: We deliver once a week, we have sales reps in there once a week. The PLCB has none of that coverage. I look at the PLCB as more of an ordering service. People can order on their portal. But they don’t really cover the sales or operation side like we do as beer wholesalers.”
The state’s facilities present another challenge. The PLCB’s wholesale operation was built largely around restaurants and taverns buying relatively small quantities of wine and spirits. Now it must accommodate orders of 300, 400 or even 500 cases of canned cocktails, Fuhrer said.
“In the back of the state stores, they have limited warehouse space, where many of us in the larger markets like Pittsburgh and Philly have a hundred thousand square feet of warehouse space to inventory all these products,” he said. “We’re used to filling bulk orders like this. A 500-case order for us is pretty standard to deliver to a lot of our distributors.”
The law also created an exception for qualifying Pennsylvania manufacturers, allowing them to bypass the state’s wholesale system and sell directly to licensed retailers. That provision opened the door for companies such as Philadelphia-based Stateside Brands.
But the exemption came with strings attached. In June, the PLCB added all Stateside products, in every package configuration, to its portfolio. The move allowed the company to continue selling directly to beer distributors and other retailers but imposed a pricing restriction. In a June letter to Stateside, PLCB Executive Director Rodrigo Diaz said those sales “may not be at a price below the PLCB price for the same item.”
A NewsWorks Lab investigation found that the PLCB’s actions have left Pennsylvanians paying more for Stateside’s popular drinks, including Super Lyte, than they did before the board sent its letter. The investigation also documented how the state’s purchasing authority, packaging requirements, product listings and pricing controls can affect which products and package sizes reach retailers — and what consumers pay.
Another popular canned cocktail brand is entering the state’s system. This week, the PLCB told licensed retailers it was adding Sun Cruiser, a line of noncarbonated vodka iced teas and lemonades made by The Boston Beer Company, to its Fine Wine & Good Spirits portfolio.
“We have already listed three Sun Cruiser products, and we have been in conversations for some time with Boston Beer to bring more of their products into our portfolio,” Brassell said. “We hope to bring about 10 more Sun Cruiser products into [Fine Wine & Good Spirits] in the near future while another dozen will be designated wholesale-only, for licensees.”
Before the PLCB added Stateside products to its portfolio, distributors buying pallets directly from the company qualified for volume discounts, bringing the price of Super Lyte down to as little as $47.99 per case. The state’s wholesale price is now $53.99. Distributors must buy the products from the PLCB, earning a 10% discount below the state’s retail prices.
Jackson wonders whether Sun Cruiser will follow the same pricing pattern, driving up costs for retailers and, ultimately, consumers.
“Not a bad business,” he said. “For the state, anyway.”
Jason McGahan is an enterprise journalist for NewsWorks Lab who can be reached at jmcgahan@newsworkslab.com.
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