The Government Shutdown Is Drying Up Craft Beers

Everyone has his or her own take on what parts of the government are “essential” and which ones we can lose during the ongoing shutdown.

If you’re a federal employee, you probably view your own department as fairly essential, or at least view the signing and sending of your paycheck as an essential government function. If you live near a nuclear facility you probably wish that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had more than a skeleton crew around:

Due to lack of appropriations, we're shutting down on Thursday. Get more info. from the latest #NRC blog. http://t.co/5WBx2f7KnN

— NRC (@NRCgov) October 9, 2013

But there are things that the American public is tolerating that it’s not going to put up with forever. When the steady stream of new craft beer varieties dries up in a few weeks, Washington will be looking back fondly on our outrage over the panda cam:

With the Panda Cam down, I'm forced to pay a cam girl to eat bamboo for my pleasure.

— Josh Comers (@joshcomers) October 9, 2013

How, then, does a government shutdown in Washington affect us at the tap and supermarket?

Well, first off it’s important to realize that we will have plenty of beers in the near future. As long as the truckers don't blockade you in, you'll still have your old favorites waiting for you wherever fine beers are sold, and also wherever Bud Light is sold.

But what we won’t have is new seasonal flavors and limited-run brews. The government office that approves new breweries, recipes and labels has been shut down due to that same lack of appropriations.

That is the purview of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, or TTB, a little-known arm of the Treasury Department. The AP reports that the agency will continue to process taxes from existing permit holders, but applications for anything new are in limbo.

It’s upsetting. Tony McGee at Lagunitas put it succinctly:

Fukin Feds are gonna shut down the already incompetent .Gov while hundreds of small breweries , including us, have labels pending. Nice.

— LagunitasT (@lagunitasT) October 1, 2013

The approval process already took too long in the eyes of some brewers—purportedly taking as long as 75 days to approve applications before the shut down. Since the shutdown kicked into action, or out of action, on October 1, that means someone could’ve had the reasonable expectation of getting approval by mid-December.

Does this mean we’ll miss out on the Christmas brews we need so badly to get through the holidays? Or the late-winter brews that hold us over on dark winter nights? If Congress doesn’t get its act together, it might.

Ben Minkoff of Berghoff Brewing was planning on launching a new specialty beer in January, but doubts that will happen now. “It’s going to put a hold on all of our projects.” Minkoff told Chicago Grid. Brooklyn Brewery is forced to wait on one of their quarterly, limited-run Brewmaster's Reserve batches.

The AP reported that Lagunitas was going to ship its autumn seasonal, Hairy Eyeball, in 22-ounce bottles instead of the normal 12-er, but now that’s on hold. Next time you’re just 10 ounces short of satisfaction, and have to drink an entire second beer that ends up being two ounces too many, know that Congress is to blame.

I spoke to the Brooklyn Brewery's compliance department about why we need the TTB for anyway.