Dive Brief:
- The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) is part of the Treasury Department. The tiny agency must give approval to new breweries, recipes and labels.
- When the federal government shut down Oct. 1, the TTB suspended operations. That left craft brewers around the country on hold.
- Even if the feds return to work, it will take quite some time for TTB to clear the backlog. The agency already took as long as 75 days to approve brewers' paperwork.
Dive Insight:
Anyone who has ever run a small business knows that nothing -- nothing -- brings more headaches than the government. From taxes, to labor laws, to permits, to licenses, to inspections, to healthcare regulations, it's actually quite hard to be a small-business owner and not turn into an anarchist of some sort.
Still, as jaded as we are already about bureaucracy, we have to admit that we were shocked to hear of the TTB. What, pray tell, does the Treasury Department have to do with beer recipes? Couldn't whatever good work the TTB does -- and we're willing to consider the possibility it actually does do something of value -- be done by another agency? Like Commerce? Or the FDA?