(Washington, DC) – From the TTB…

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We selected 246 distilled spirits, 206 malt beverages, and 196 wines for the 2012 ABSP, with 642 total products included in the survey. After analyzing these products, we found 158 products that were non‐compliant. By commodity, we found that 85 distilled spirits products, 40malt beverage products, and 33 wine products were non‐compliant. The most common compliance issues we identified involved alcohol content that did not match the label and was outside regulatory tolerances, or that placed the product in a different tax class than indicated by the label. These differences can lead to additional tax liability for the industry member.

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Below we’ve pulled just the malt beverage stats. 40 beverages not-compliant out of 206 sampled.

Approximately 14% of the beverages sampled (or 1 in 7) have a variance in ABV (what is sampled versus what is stated on the label) that exceeds the threshold set by the TTB (the number for which we are having trouble locating on the TTB website).

For more on these definitions, here is a PDF guide.