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Pennsylvania beer drinkers can't purchase beer in supermarkets or convenience stores, where the big brewers often squeeze small brewers off the shelves. Instead, consumers have to go to beer distributors or taverns. The beer distributors account for an estimated 70% of the state's beer sales, but by law they have to sell full cases, reducing the effectiveness of the big brewers' discounting tactics. Neighborhood taverns and delis can sell six-packs or 12-packs, but the prices there are generally quite high...The state rules, which date to 1934, the year after Prohibition ended nationally, were intended to limit alcohol consumption

Living in Pennsylvania, I never could figure out how forcing people to buy a case reduced beer consumption.

Consumers concerned about price buy cases from the distributors. But cases of beer from local independent brewers such as Stoudt's Brewing Co. in Adamstown and Troegs Brewing Co. in Harrisburg can cost as much as $25, compared with closer to $15 for nationally distributed domestic beers.

You can often find a case of Yuengling Lager cans for $13.99. Yuengling can compete on both price and quality. And Yuengling has a hard time keeping up with the demand - every beer distributor I've been to in the state has a veritable mountain of cases of Lager.

Living in Pennsylvania, I never could figure out how forcing people to buy a case reduced beer consumption.

It's not designed that way. The idea is that inconvenience is bulit into it. You have to go out of your way to go to a special store to buy beer. This eliminates impulse buying and in theory, provides better control of the substance than having teenaged checkout clerks at a minimart selling beer to their friends.

It also puts a cap on late night drinking, where people tend to cause the most problems. Since you can't buy more than a 12 pack after the distributors close, the thinking is that such late night activity is curtailed.