Government Shutdown Impacts Oklahoma Breweries

Not only is the partial government shutdown impacting nearly 800 thousand federal employees, but it's also starting to have an impact on small businesses in our area.

Thursday, January 24th 2019, 11:14 pm

By: Amy Avery

Not only is the partial government shutdown impacting nearly 800,000 federal employees, but it's also starting to have an impact on small businesses in our area.

Several craft breweries have been opening shop in Tulsa in the past few years.

Right now, some brewery owners tell me they're having trouble releasing new beers because of the political fight in Washington.

"We can always skip it and keep making our Dead Armadillo amber and Tulsa flag beer, but we want to do fun stuff and showcase what we can do to everybody," said Tony Peck.

“Tony Peck and his partner Mason Beecroft started brewing beer in Tulsa in 2015. One year later they opened up Dead Armadillo’s Tap Room and ever since then, they've had a lot of success.”

Dead Armadillo is planning to release two new seasonal beers soon, but because of the government shutdown, they could have some trouble getting it from the tank to the taproom.

“We’re lucky enough to not have brewed it yet, so were going to hold off and wait,” said Peck. “I don’t want to be in a situation where it’s going to sit in the tank and not be what we want it to be.”

Whenever a new beer is brewed then sold across state lines, the label must be approved by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau or TTB.

This is one of the many agencies not working during the shutdown.

“There’s certain things on the label, the government warning, the ounces that you have on here, type of beer it is. they want to know that you’ve done those things,” said Peck.

Peck says the application process can take anywhere from two days to 90 days to get approved, but even if the shutdown would end tomorrow, it could still put them behind because so many people are applying every day

"With all the breweries opening up they get 8 thousand label approvals a week, so that’s stacking up pretty quick," said Peck.

TTB's website has a tab where you can see the current processing times for labels, which says they haven't processed anything since December 21st.

Brewers can check the status of their application online, but of course there's no one there to look over their applications.

Peck says they are planning to wait and see how long the shutdown goes until they decide on their spring and summer releases.

They say if the shutdown goes longer than six months it could prevent them from releasing it at all.

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