A lawsuit has been filed in North Carolina challenging the constitutionality of two state laws that are, according to the filing, “artificially suppressing…economic growth…” In the preamble of the filing, Craft Freedom, LLC, The Olde Mecklenburg Brewery and Noda Brewing Company state that “North Carolina’s “Distribution Cap” punishes craft breweries for their own success by forcing them to hand over the rights to distribute their own beer to private distributors if they sell more than 25,000 barrels—a cap that is arbitrary and ensnares small but successful craft breweries. Second, North Carolina’s “Franchise Law” forces craft breweries to enter into oppressive, one-sided contracts with distributors that literally last forever, and which require the breweries to turn over control of their product—including pricing—to the distributors.”