HARRISBURG — Where you can buy beer in Pennsylvania will be the subject of debate in the coming weeks in the state Senate, pitting profit-seeking businesses against one another and perhaps even against beer drinkers’ wishes.

What do beer drinkers want? In Harrisburg, that story line is being told by a variety of businesses in the context of what lines up neatly with their would-be profits.

In the middle of it is Sen. Charles McIlhinney, R-Bucks, who chairs the committee that will get the first crack at a bill that passed the House last month. The first hearing is Tuesday.

The debate about adding consumer convenience to the beer system is largely a passenger in the drive by Republican Gov. Tom Corbett to privatize the state-controlled sales of wine and liquor.

So any changes to Pennsylvania’s relatively restrictive beer laws likely will be part of the larger puzzle of liberalizing the sale of all alcoholic beverages.

“You’re trying to piece this all together,” McIlhinney said in an interview. “If everybody’s out to give themselves a leg up and make special interest legislation, then it’s going to fall apart. The only way to do it is to craft a fair playing field for everybody and let them compete.”

Arguably, beer is more important to Pennsylvanians: The state was fifth in the nation in beer shipments and 12th in wine shipments, according to statistics compiled by the Washington, D.C.-based Beer Institute.

Changing the system could be tricky.

Corbett is spending more of his political effort on the ideological battle around privatizing wine and liquor sales. But changing the beer system could take an equally large political effort.

Pennsylvania’s hometown brewers, wholesalers and the retail distributors who sell most of the beer in the state are largely aligned against an expansion of beer retailers. What Pennsylvanians want is to be able to buy beer in a wider variety of quantities than is currently allowed, they say.

But owners of convenience stores, grocery stores, drug stores, big-box stores and supermarkets are lobbying for the ability to sell beer — not to mention wine and liquor — in their aisles. That satisfies the one-stop shopping that consumers want and get in many other states, they say.

“It’s a big issue. It’s a volatile issue for many,” said David Casinelli, the chief operating officer of Pottsville-based Yuengling Beer. “There’s many stakeholders when it comes to alcohol in Pennsylvania.”

The balance of small brewers versus the nation’s biggest brewers, including MillerCoors and Anheuser-Busch InBev, also will play a role.

Smaller brewers want a retail system that makes consumers happy but doesn’t allow wine and spirits to take shelf space away from beer, said Bill Covaleski, president of Victory Brewing of Downingtown.