SL-001 TTB and the Government Shutdown
Welcome to the very first Sightlines episode of the Good Beer Hunting podcast. These episodes are where we dig in to a timely topic with experts from around the country, working to make you and us smarter about what\u2019s going on in the beer industry right now. This week, brewers around the country are dealing with the ramifications of the government shutdown, which means that key agencies like the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau\u2014often referred to as the TTB\u2014are entirely unresponsive, and that means that almost nothing new can legally come to market until those agencies are re-opened and the backlog is cleared. The TTB is critical for brewers who need label and formation approvals for their beers in order to package and sell them. So what\u2019s going to happen in an industry that survives almost exclusively off new releases? To catch us up to speed, we\u2019re going to talk to Jared Treanor, Brand Manager of Brewery Ommegang in New York, and Ashley Brandt, a Chicago attorney who works with breweries of all sizes. (He\u2019s also, incidentally, GBH\u2019s attorney.) Thanks for listening. Sightlines is the news and analysis section of Good Beer Hunting, and it\u2019s focused the evolution of the beer industry. We\u2019re excited to turn it into an ongoing podcast series! Good Beer Hunting is supported in part by our underwriters, New Belgium Brewing Co. out of Fort Collins, Colorado, and Guinness, which is based in Dublin, and newly in Baltimore County, Maryland. And as always, we\u2019re supported by the Fervent few, a community of subscribers. You can support GBH by joining.