American Craft Beer The Best Craft Beer, Breweries, Bars, Brewpubs, Beer Stores, And Restaurants Serving Serious Beer.
The beer biz never sleeps at American Craft Beer. And here’s more of what’s been happening in the beer world, as you get ready to drink your way into 2019.
A Prolonged Government Shutdown Will Impact Craft Brewers (Washington, DC) – Going into Christmas, the government officially shut down over a border wall funding dispute. And according to the Brewers Association if it goes on for long it could prove problematic for brewers who distribute new product across state lines and lead to costly delays.
The partial government shutdown includes the closure of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (affectionately referred to as the TTB by the industry). The TTB is the federal organization that oversees things like brewery applications, beer labels, and loans. And breweries who distribute across state lines can’t do that without product-specific label approval.
Closing the TTB could lead to a beer label backlog, as it also did back in 2013, meaning that breweries already scheduled to release new beers in 2019 will be affected if this shutdown becomes prolonged.
Words To Drink By (Washington, DC) – “We hope members of Congress and the President negotiate a swift end to this government shutdown so the TTB and other agencies that impact the beer industry get back up and running [and] so Americans can continue to enjoy innovations in their favorite alcohol beverage – beer” Beer Institute CEO Jim McGreevy to Brewbound
Don’t Drink Me
Utah Imposes The Lowest DUI Threshold In The Country (Salt Lake City, UT) – With a new law that took effect over the weekend, Utah is now home to the nation’s strictest DUI laws. The state’s old limit was 0.08 percent, the threshold in most states, but as of December 30th that standard was changed to 0.05 percent according to KUTV.
According to figures from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Utah’s new “boderline contact high” DUI standard means that a 150-pound man could be over the 0.05 limit after two beers in an hour, while a 120-pound woman could exceed it after a single drink in that time.
