In pitching state Senate Bill 138 to revise Ohio’s franchise law and give small craft brewers more flexibility to deal with wholesalers, state Sen. Andrew Brenner, R-Delaware, said the old law “was written for the market of 50 years ago.

“… Distributors worth hundreds of millions of dollars do not need protection from our local neighborhood breweries,” he said, according to a report by the Ohio Capital Journal, “and it’s time state law reflected that.”

As Brenner does his work in the state Senate to free craft brewers of the crushing weight of laws written to restrain large brewers back in the 1970s, state Reps. Brett Hillyer, R-Uhrichsville, and Tim Barhorst, R-Fort Loramie, are trying the same in the House.

Both efforts aim to maintain contract restrictions on large brewers, but impose a floor of 250,000 barrels.

The House bill also amends the state permitting system to ensure brewers falling below the 250,000-barrel floor can continue to sell beer on-site or directly to retailers, according to the Capital Journal.

“Under current Ohio law craft brewers have no negotiating power, no recourse and no way out of these unfair contracts,” Ohio Craft Brewers Association executive director Mary MacDonald said back in May.

Very few industries look today as they did in the mid 1970s.

While lawmakers are to be commended for looking at updating the rules for brewers, Brenner’s remark should ring through discussion of the rules governing a broad range of industries in Ohio.