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Bus. & Prof. Code, § 25205 · Article 2. Beer

Bus. & Prof. Code, § 25205

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) Any container of beer or alcoholic beverage, other than sake, that is approved for labeling as a malt beverage under the Federal Alcohol Administration Act (27 U.S.C. Sec. 201 et seq.), that derives 0.5 percent or more of its alcoholic content by volume from flavors or other ingredients containing distilled alcohol and that is sold by a manufacturer or importer to a wholesaler or retailer within this state on or after July 1, 2009, shall bear a distinctive, conspicuous, and prominently displayed label, or firmly affixed sticker, containing the following information:

(1) The percentage alcohol content of the beverage by volume.

(2) The phrase “CONTAINS ALCOHOL” in bold capitalized letters at least three millimeters in height and that is distinguishable from the background and placed conspicuously in either horizontal or vertical lettering on the front of the brand label. A firmly affixed sticker need not be placed on the brand label provided it is placed on the front of the container.

(b) The department may require licensees to submit information as it determines to be necessary, and may adopt regulations as may be required, to implement and enforce this section. The regulations shall be for the limited purpose of ensuring compliance with this section and shall not place additional requirements on the label or sticker required by this section. Any information required to be provided by any licensee to the department pursuant to this section shall be considered confidential and corporate proprietary information. This information shall not be subject to disclosure under the California Public Records Act (Division 10 (commencing with Section 7920.000) of Title 1 of the Government Code).

(c) It is the exclusive purpose of this section to identify and specially label products described in subdivision (a) and not to classify these specially labeled products. Nothing in this section shall be construed to permit the classification of any product in a manner that is inconsistent with the definitions of beer, wine, and distilled spirits set forth in Chapter 1 (commencing with Section 23000) of this division.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2021, Ch. 615, Sec. 38. (AB 474) Effective January 1, 2022. Operative January 1, 2023, pursuant to Section 463 of Stats. 2021, Ch. 615.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=BPC&sectionNum=25205.
Text hash
sha256 33df233a7fb2bec0b90a1c47e76135b70bbdaedabe32a072892779a896fbbd22
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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