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When did all formulas become "natural flavor added"

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  • When did all formulas become "natural flavor added"

    I used to hate the days of submitting formulas for beers and having the constant back and forth with TTB about saying "belgian STYLE ale brewed with spices" vs. just "belgian ale brewed with spices" and other such trivial points of proper grammar.

    However, it almost always lead (eventually) to a reasonably proper description of the beer to put on the label. Now I kind of miss those days. Somewhere along the way in the past year in what I assume was an effort to speed up approvals the process changed such that no matter what you submit they automatically change it for you and approve. In the most bureaucratically boring way possible everything comes back as some variation of "malt beverage brewed with natural flavor".

    Does anyone else take some minor offense to this? I'm not sure how "malt beverage brewed with natural flavor" is a better label description for what is actually in a beer than say "belgian style ale brewed with coriander and hibiscus". Also, "natural flavor" reminds me of the stuff they put in soda to make it taste like "something" and seems like a very unnatural way to describe a beer.

    Am I out of my element here? When did this change and what (if anything) is a good recourse for this? I REALLY don't want to have to start labelling beers this way. It makes it sound like I am making a shitty flavored malt beverage instead of a flavorful beer....
    Scott LaFollette
    Fifty West Brewing Company
    Cincinnati, Ohio

  • #2
    suggest your own description

    Hi Scott, we submit our own description with the formula approval. Unless we are having a different experience with the on-line approval process. I never liked the standard wording (even when it was all done via the USPS) and was told we could submit our own wording in place of the "malt beverage stuff". Thankfully the new approved ingredients list added a lot of the standard ingredients anyway. Cheers, Dan

    Originally posted by yap View Post
    I used to hate the days of submitting formulas for beers and having the constant back and forth with TTB about saying "belgian STYLE ale brewed with spices" vs. just "belgian ale brewed with spices" and other such trivial points of proper grammar.

    However, it almost always lead (eventually) to a reasonably proper description of the beer to put on the label. Now I kind of miss those days. Somewhere along the way in the past year in what I assume was an effort to speed up approvals the process changed such that no matter what you submit they automatically change it for you and approve. In the most bureaucratically boring way possible everything comes back as some variation of "malt beverage brewed with natural flavor".

    Does anyone else take some minor offense to this? I'm not sure how "malt beverage brewed with natural flavor" is a better label description for what is actually in a beer than say "belgian style ale brewed with coriander and hibiscus". Also, "natural flavor" reminds me of the stuff they put in soda to make it taste like "something" and seems like a very unnatural way to describe a beer.

    Am I out of my element here? When did this change and what (if anything) is a good recourse for this? I REALLY don't want to have to start labelling beers this way. It makes it sound like I am making a shitty flavored malt beverage instead of a flavorful beer....

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