An effort to let Texas breweries sell beer from their taprooms is nearing the finish line.

The Texas Senate on Wednesday night unanimously approved an amendment to a larger bill concerning the operations of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission that would allow manufacturing breweries in the state to sell canned or bottled beer for take-home consumption.

The House has already OK'd beer to go; if that chamber approves the changes to the bill, the measure will head to Gov. Greg Abbott.

"This legislation will represent the most comprehensive, positive reform to the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code in a generation, serving the entire industry from the brewer down to the consumer," the Texas Craft Brewers Guild said in a written statement after the Senate's vote.

Texas consumers would soon be able to buy up to one case of beer per day to take home from any brewery in the state, which includes Real Ale Brewing in Blanco and in Austin, Celis Brewery and Austin Beerworks. Buying beer to take home is already permitted at brewpubs, such as Pinthouse Pizza, the Brewtorium and Jester King Brewery.

The guild had pushed for beer-to-go sales for six consecutive legislative sessions. The biggest opponent of beer to go had been distributors, represented by the Beer Alliance of Texas and the Wholesale Beer Distributors of Texas, arguing that beer to go would erode the three-tier system that governs the production, distribution and sale of alcohol in Texas. Taking home product from breweries is allowed in all other states, according to the guild.

In February, the Texas Craft Brewers Guild reached a compromise with the Beer Alliance, but it wasn't until last week that the Wholesale Beer Distributors of Texas came to the table, too. Under the new deal, the amount of beer people could take home from taprooms decreased from two cases per day to one, although one key element remained the same: Breweries could sell the equivalent of up to 5,000 barrels of beer in their taprooms for either on-premise or off-premise consumption.

"Our constituents elected us to be bold, and with that, I give you beer to go, baby," Sen. Dawn Buckingham, R-Lakeway, said while introducing the amendment. It is "about more than selling beer to go. It is about job creation, economic development, tourism, support for entrepreneurship."

The bill overall would also make other key changes to Texas' long-unaltered alcoholic beverage code, which the TABC applauded in a Thursday statement by the agency's executive director, Bentley Nettles.

"The sunset bill is historic because it is arguably the most significant modernization of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Code since it was written in 1935," Nettles said. It "will enable all industry members to more easily grow their businesses in new and innovative ways while giving TABC the authority we need in order to ensure a safe and competitive playing field for all."

He noted in the statement that the bill includes a proposal to decrease the number of permit types by half and to merge the current beer and ale designations into one category called "malt beverage."

"Ultimately, it's the people of Texas who stand to benefit the most from these historic changes," he said.