Shipping bottles as a business

I was reading last nights beernews.org posting about how a highly rated home brew shop in Ohio is going to start selling bottles of small batch brews out of their store. Reading about this made me think of my dreams of starting a brew business some day and how best to get started. It would seem to me in this case they would need to have the equivalent of a Maryland micro-brewery license. Since they would be selling on-site, there is no need to have to deal with distributors, which is my main concern about starting up a business.

For some reason, this got me thinking about the viability of starting a small craft brewery like this that sells strictly on-site, but also self distributes through the mail. I recall reading something recently talking about how FedEx is starting up beer shipping in some states. I've looked for the article and can't find what I previously read. Anyways, I guess the idea would be to start small, either with the system I have or buy/build a new system with 1-2 barrel capacity. I would need to sell directly from the brew premise to stay away from distributors but also the idea would be to sell online to whoever will buy.

Selling online has some hurdles though that I have not looked into:

1. Is it legal to sell beer online in Maryland
2. Which shipping services will support beer deliveries cheaply
3. How many states can actually order beer out of state and have it shipped locally

One way to get the business going and provide an additional revenue stream would be do re-sell commercial beer. Importing some hard to find stuff, local stuff, and simply providing a source for beer people can't get at home, definitely has a market. Plus this could me the opportunity to start a niche market of selling vintage bottles. The idea being cellaring good beer for a year or more and selling the older stuff at a premium. I know I have often looked for retailers like this but have not found any to exist.

That's it for now. buisness