BeerPulse

The federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau has authority over most alcoholic beverages. But beer made without barley isn’t covered by its definition of “malt beverage,” and oversight defaults to the Food and Drug Administration. The FDA allows breweries to label these beers “gluten-free” if they contain fewer than 20 parts per million of gluten. Omission labels claim the beer contains 6 ppm or fewer of gluten. But to ship a barley-based beer out of state, says Michaelson, the brewery needs label approval from the Tax and Trade Bureau. And the bureau does not currently allow any statement about gluten content on the labels of these beers, says specialist Tom Hogue, the agency’s director for congressional and public affairs.

via Washington Post.