When you grab a craft beer, you’re not worrying about its nutrition, or lack thereof. No, when you grab a craft beer the only thing you worry about is whether or not it tastes good. However, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has now decided that craft beers sold in chain restaurants and brew pubs must include nutritional information by December 2016. While the
new regulation should only affect food establishments directly, it will indirectly have a major impact on the craft beer industry and the availability of our favorite beers.Craft breweries will now need to complete the required nutritional testing in order to obtain the proper documentation that restaurants will be required to have available to its customers. The cost of said testing is estimated between $500-$1,000.
For larger craft breweries the additional overhead may not be as cumbersome, but for smaller breweries, it may mean that we could see less of their beers at our favorite watering hole. The breweries who will be affected the most by this regulation will be microbrewers, like Deviate Brewing, as they typically create small batches and will have less incentive to pay for testing.
Breweries will only have to test each beer once, though. For example, if Sun King wanted to keep Wee Mac in a chain restaurant, they would test it and then wouldn’t have to test it again until they made a change to the recipe. That means breweries can keep their standard beers in restaurants, without too much of a financial setback.
Your new beer label?
As a craft beer drinker, I don’t need to be reminded each time I drink a beer that I’m making an unhealthy choice. Having to stare at the caloric intake of each IPA or Imperial Stout I drink would only cause me to drink more.
What are you thoughts on the FDA requiring nutritional information on craft beers? Do you care about being able to counting calories when drinking? Let us know in the comments below.
Sarah
I don’t care to know, nor do I want to know, the calorie and carb content of my beer. Takes some of the enjoyment out of it.
Garrett
Mathew,
Just to clarify a few points here. First, this FDA rule only applies to chains with 20 or more locations. So this pretty much excludes most places around central Indiana that carry local beer, and certainly rules out local bars/pubs and brewpubs.
Second, it’s my understanding of the rule that it only applies to items listed on a menu or menu board. While certainly not the most convenient option, a chain restaurant could simply not have a beer menu or not include on their menu beers that lack nutrition information from the brewer. The link you posted from RMagazine references this in application to draft beers, but nothing in the rule explicitly mentions draft beers and I couldn’t find any terms that could be construed as draft beer.
Third, this rule applies to all foods listed on menus and menu boards, not just craft beer.
All in all, I’m not sure local breweries have much to worry about in regards to this rule unless they want their brews on tap at the local Applebee’s.
Hope this helps.