HARRISBURG — A state Senate committee on Wednesday approved a bill designed to give beer drinkers more options when they buy six-packs and wipe out one of the nation's most restrictive beer-sales laws.

The bill, which passed the Senate Law and Justice Committee on a 9-1 vote, must still receive approval from the full House and Senate.

Under the bill, beer distributors could sell quantities as small as a six-pack. Currently, the state's approximately 1,300 distributors must sell quantities of a case or more, the only law of its kind in the nation, according to Senate officials.

In addition, bars would be able to sell a maximum of three six-packs at a time, up from the maximum two six-packs they now can sell to one customer.

Senators say the bill is designed to satisfy consumers and help smaller brewers, although neither distributors nor bar owners support the bill.

"They all have their own little fiefdoms, they all want more and they don't want anybody to get anything else and we said, 'The heck with them,"' said Sen. John Rafferty, a Chester County Republican who chairs the committee.

Francis X. O'Brien, a lawyer for the Pennsylvania Beer Wholesalers, said the bill could help increase beer sales in Pennsylvania by stanching "border bleed" — Pennsylvanians who go to a neighboring state to buy a six-pack of a microbrew that they can't buy at a distributor or bar in Pennsylvania.