Does anybody — anybody? — remember just 22 years ago when microbrewers Bert and Sherry Grant were hounded mercilessly by the ATF for daring — those foul, vile, deadly criminals! — to put nutritional labels on their ale?
Well, this time next year the FDA is going to start mercilessly hounding microbrewers who — those foul, vile, deadly criminals! — fail to put nutritional labels on their products. (Via Tam).
Ah, the land of the free and the home of the overgoverned! Ain’t it grand?
I wonder if the FDA checked first with the ATF to see whose contradictory book of regulations would rule the microbrew and craft beer world. Or will it simply be left to the brewers to try to figure out how they can obey both agencies at once? Nutritional labels in invisible ink, perhaps? Double-sided labels, one side with nutritional info and one without?
Such a pity Bert Grant didn’t live to see this day. He was a feisty fella who would surely have had something enlightening to say about this development.
I didn’t know anyone actually read the labels on beer. What a concept. 🙂 I love beer, but don’t buy it often. The regular, mass produced kind, I mean. At a dollar or more a bottle, the good stuff is simply out of reach. 🙁
naked tyranny, it’s for your health. unless it’s for corporate health. same effect disallow/mandate. and guess who is buying up craft brewers.
Great riff, Claire!
I wonder if any of the larger brewers had a hand in urging the FDA to impose these requirements.
Large corporations are always whining about government regulations, but sometimes these corporations use their lobbying clout to get Congress or agencies to impose regulations on their competition—even gnat-sized ones.
I struggle to imagine my Czech friends reacting to this…
…wait, no I don’t. I can just hear them now:
“Some new law? And if you break it, you must be a prisoner? For some stupid paper to tell you that beer is made with water and yeast and flowers? …I think I stay in Czech Republic.”
Laws and regulations are not supposed to make sense to the peons.
The more laws, the less justice.