Local breweries still feeling effects of govt. shutdown

PARSONSBURG, Md. –  It appears the partial government shutdown lasted just long enough to push back the spring releases of some your favorite local beers.

We’re told places like Tall Tales Brewing Co. won’t be able to get their spring releases ready in time because of the backlog of label approvals at the Alcohol and Tobacco Trade Burea or TTB.

Any time a new beer comes out, it requires a new label and the entire time the shutdown was taking place no new labels were approved.

We’re told given the current timeline of 48 days, labels won’t get approved until the end of March.

“If we’re looking at end of March, beginning of April you’ve already basically missed the window because it needs to go to the distributor and be at the distributor in March so that the distributor staff can start to sell it into accounts, so it’s really throwing a wrench into the spring release date,” explains Jason Hearn, co-owner of Tall Tales.

We’re told some breweries have actually had to dump beer because of this, but places like Tall Tales are trying to work around it to be able to release things at their brewery in the meantime.