If you’ve ever wished you could keep buying brews past the seventh-inning stretch, you now might be in luck.
The Milwaukee Brewers are extending stadium alcohol sales beyond the standard seventh inning on a trial basis, per an MLB announcement. This change comes following the MLB’s adoption of a pitch timer in September 2022 in order to shorten games and create a quicker pace of play. Abbreviated games also mean smaller windows for fans to purchase alcohol, as beer typically stops flowing at stadiums at the end of the seventh inning.
Under the Brewers’ new policy, fans can purchase drinks at American Family Field through the end of the eighth inning. This new regulation was trialed for two Brewers home openers against the New York Mets with no reported disruptions.
The pitch timer rule change, which adds a thirty-second countdown between batters, reduces game duration by an average of 45 minutes per the MLB. During the Brewers’ first six games under the new rule, each one averaged about two hours and 34 minutes. In comparison, the previous season’s opening games typically lasted well over three hours.
The Brewers’ alcohol sales extension is currently operating on a trial basis, as confirmed by the team’s president of business operations Rick Schlesinger:
“This is [reflective] of the fact that the games are shorter. From a time perspective, we’re probably looking at selling beer for the same amount of time by extending to the eighth inning that we did last year through the seventh,” Schlesinger states in the announcement. “Obviously, the safety and the conduct of our fans has primacy. We’ve had no issues, but it’s a small sample size and we’re going to continue to test it and see if it makes sense. I know a number of other teams are doing the same thing.”
The MLB notes in the announcement that alcohol sales policies are decided by individual teams and venues under local alcohol regulations. Wisconsin alcohol regulations do not address the timing of sales at the American Family Field stadium.
Other teams, like the Texas Rangers and Arizona Diamondbacks, seem to be embracing similar changes to the alcohol sales policy.
