US Government Shutdown Affects Beer Industry

And one more effect of the Government shutdown is the impact on new businesses. All alcohol permittees and brewers are required to receive approval before beginning business. With as many as 1000 new breweries coming on line this year, in addition to many hundreds of bonded wineries and distilleries, TTB's Service Center has an enormous job to review and approve applications - and with less personnel today then 30 years ago when new applications were perhaps one-tenth of today's numbers. Anyone in line now for approval will be delayed a month at minimum. For new applicants, delay in approval will be many months since so many applications are already backed up. I am currently working with a prospective New Hampshire brewer who hopes to open in June of this year. Even submitting a perfect application today cannot guarantee approval of this brewery by June..

 

Best idea I’ve heard all week

 

Yup, as I noted in that post:


Supposedly, earlier in the decade, Schlitz's fear that their labels would read like the above example caused them to substitute Chill-garde for silica gel (or papain, depending on which source one is reading) since it would get filtered out and not have to be listed as an ingredient. The Chill-garde interacted with their foam stabilizer, Kelcoloid, to cause the infamous "Schlitz Bits" that contributed (they had other problems- flavor, corporate leadership and legal) to their ultimate demise by the early '80s.

During the same period, as AB and Miller were fighting it out in the press and complaints to regulators during the "Beer Wars", Miller attacked AB over their use of the word "Natural" and AB noted that Miller Lite's ingredient list would look:

 

I don't understand how this is a good idea. Do you not like having some decent idea what is in the products you buy?

 

If they actually used Emka malt I wonder if it was the same brand as the one you showed an advertisement for in this thread. If it was a liquid malt extract that's interesting but goes to show how alot of brewers use either extract or darkly roasted malts in small amounts to make the color of their pale beers more golden colored than it would be with only the pale malt and the adjunct. Nowadays Miller is touting their use of caramel malt for Lite, it's the kind of minor adjustment to recipe one can expect for most brands over time I guess.

 

Maybe the caramel malt goes well with their triple hopping scheme!?!

Cheers!

 

Since the TTB rules for ingredient listing for beer is still so loose, maybe a barley malt syrup/extract like Emka can simply be called "barley malt" on labels and their websites?

Altho' AB does list "malt extract" as an ingredient besides barley malt for their dark-ish lagers like Michelob Amberbock and Zeigenbock where it is obviously used more for coloring than as a fermentable, since they also use corn and rice, respecitively, as adjuncts.

 

That's true, it doesn't mean they're not using both.

 

It's not really about what I want....it should be about what the business wants. If they feel it will help them better serve their customer base by adding labels, more power to them, go for it.

But I don't think the government needs to be involved, more than they already are. There's already plenty of regulation, and as you may have noticed, the government can't even handle what's currently on their plate.

 

The problem with that is that we have a history of companies wanting to do things that are detrimental to the broader public because it's convenient/profitable. I would love the government to stay or if private citizens lives. I wish they were more proactive toward potentially harmful behavior if businesses. I for one would like mandatory ingredient labels on beer, would be interesting to see what some "craft" beers were crafted from

 

I think you are creating a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

There aren’t labels on (most) beers today. Do you think people are harmed as a result?

Do you think bud drinkers know there is rice in their beer? Do they care? Is it the government’s job to tell them?

The decision to put labels on beer should be between consumers and businesses. Period. Keep the government out.

 

Consumers, businesses, and government are not just separate entities like chess pieces. It is what/who we are. And it surely can be like a game of chess sometimes, like every day.

 

Odd question And I may not be wording it right. But if the permit approval process is being haulted, are there enforcement officials still around? I guess one would need not only state and county permits but federal as well to operate breweries. But if a state gives you the go ahead, and with a non working government agency, would some breweries take that chance?

A part of me says. If the MVD closed and the states still required licenses, would you drive without a license? Not to say breweries would operate without federal approval but if this extends months, I don't see how some breweries don't take matters into their own hands. Do some state lawmakers step in? Maybe I'm just talking out of my butt here.

 

Reasonable set of questions.

But the driving without a license analogy needs to be modified. If your car left an electronic record in the form of video recording of your license plate when went through an intersection or whe you ran that stop sign would you still drive?

If a brewer bottles/cans using an unapproved label and then distributes, there will be visible, tangible evidence of violation, e.g., full and empty cans/bottles with lablels. Will that brewery fly under the radar and not get noticed or caught? Possibly, but if knew you were risking the loss of your business and the sole source of income, while also having big debts in bank loans, would you risk it?

 

Have you been following what is going on in Washington, DC? The game isn't chess. The game is poker!

Cheers!

 

With massive numbers of unelected bureaucrats, difficult to fire even when misusing their office, creating regulations enforced by the power of government, I think the idea that government is "who we are" is somewhat inaccurate.

 

Or a no holds barred wrasslin' match.

 

This guy speaks the truth!

 

I think people are occasionally harmed by the lack of ingredient labels on beers. I imagine there is a certain number of people exposed to an allergen (I'm thinking lactose) through beer every year. This obviously isn't some massive crisis but I'm sure it happens. There's a history in this country of businesses putting all sorts of weird and dangerous crap in the processed consumables they sell to increase profits, it's the reason we have food safety laws in the first place.
This specific instance that this thread is about is largely annoying govt overreach, my understanding is that new label approval is largely about making sure there's no "offensive" art or language and that the abv is accurate (which I am grateful for because I happen to believe that I have a right to know Howe much alcohol i am consuming without having to possess any specialized equipment)
On the whole though, if you think food/beverage labeling should be a private affair I would encourage you to investigate the food industry in this country prior to the fda. It's not very appetizing