Byproducts of booze help feed dairy cows and beef cattle across America. Beer, cows and happy hour

The Food and Drug Administration has proposed a regulation that could threaten happy hour. For cows.

Though few Americans realize it, the byproducts of their booze consumption actually help feed dairy cows and beef cattle across the country. And if you drink beer from Flying Dog Brewery, your habit helps feed bulls used in professional rodeos.


But a proposed rule from the FDA that aims to ensure the safety of animal feed and pet food — part of a sweeping new food safety reform law signed by President Barack Obama in 2011 — includes new regulatory requirements that could make the practice cost-prohibitive, sending grains left over from beer and whiskey into landfills.

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The proposal has brewers, distillers and some members of Congress up in arms.

The relationship between alcohol-makers and farmers is a centuries-old symbiotic partnership that even George Washington took part in. Brewers and distillers have tons of wet grain left over from making alcohol, and cows just happen to love it.

They love it so much that many farmers call it “happy hour” when they feed their animals spent grain, whether it’s the byproduct of bourbon or IPA. The arrangement makes beer, bourbon and other alcohol producers happy, too, as they avoid paying to dispose of massive quantities of grain while also helping reduce farmers’ feed costs.

The proposed rule, which would require new preventive safety practices and more record keeping, has caught the attention of several lawmakers, particularly those who represent states with burgeoning craft beer industries.

This week, 13 senators, led by Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Ben Cardin (D-Md.), expressed their concerns to the FDA and urged the agency to not unduly burden the beer industry. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.), whose state is known as “the Napa Valley of beer,” as it is home to a long list of craft producers and major breweries, like MillerCoors, wrote his own letter to the agency this week seeking a risk assessment before any proposal moves forward.

On average, one gallon of beer will yield about a pound of spent grain. One gallon of bourbon yields more than nine pounds.

The Brewers Association is concerned that the FDA’s proposal might force the 2,000 craft breweries it represents to dry or package up their spent grain — a resource-intensive process — instead of allowing farmers to just pick up the wet grains in trucks, as most operations do now.

The group estimates that 80 percent of its members currently give away their spent grain to livestock farmers.

The FDA’s regulations could cause the craft brewing industry to spend nearly $43 million per year to send its spent grains to landfills instead, according to the Brewers Association.

Large brewers, who usually sell their used grains to brokers, would be affected, too. The Beer Institute, which represents the heavyweights of the industry, including Anheuser-Busch, MillerCoors and others, estimates that the proposal could end up initially costing each large brewer $11 million and more than $1 million a year to implement audits, employee training and testing for pathogens.

Both the small and large beer associations argue that the FDA’s changes are unnecessary because there is no record of a food safety issue caused by spent grain fed to animals. It’s also not an issue food safety or consumer advocates seem concerned about, as they are much more focused on other major new food safety rules aimed at produce farms and food manufacturers.

“This is a practice that’s been going on for centuries without any incident or risk to human health,” said Chris Thorne, vice president of communications for the Beer Institute. Thorne said his association is “cautiously optimistic” that the FDA will address the issue and said several lawmakers have been receptive to its concerns.

Distillers are already using food-grade ingredients, and, on top of that, everything is boiled during the process, which would kill any bacteria that could be present, said a Virginia whiskey distiller, who asked to not be named.

“We routinely give our spent grains to local farmers, and they find great value in it. Feed prices are very high,” he said. “The cows love it. We have a waiting list.”

Flying Dog Brewery, in Frederick, Md., currently donates 150,000 pounds of spent grain per week to a farm that raises bulls for the Professional Bull Riders tour and is looking to expand to give its grain to local dairy farms, as well.

“It’s mutually beneficial,” said Ben Chambers, the quality manager at Flying Dog, who formerly worked in quality assurance at a Coors plant in Colorado. “I don’t know what we’d do if a truck weren’t able to take it to a farm. It would probably end up in a landfill.”

“I’m an advocate for making sure everything is as safe as possible for consumers,” added Chambers. “But there’s no way this can fly.”

Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) brought up concerns about the “absurd” rule during a recent appropriations hearing and urged FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to consider the impact on breweries and farmers.

“I think there is a reasonable solution that can be found,” Hamburg said.

“We do plan to reopen comment in some targeted areas of particular concern,” she added. “We think this can be taken up in that context, and I hope we can find a meaningful, viable solution.”

At another hearing in February, Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) told Michael Taylor, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, he’s concerned the feed rule would have the same negative impact on Kentucky distillers, which manufacture 95 percent of all bourbon, and ultimately lead to more food waste. Taylor assured the committee the agency would resolve their concerns in a “practical way.”

Pingree, whose state is home to more than 50 breweries, told POLITICO she is “hopeful” the spent grain issue will be reconsidered.

“I felt really good about the conversation we had with FDA last week,” she said in an interview, adding that she plans to lobby her colleagues to garner support for exempting brewers from the proposal.

Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association, said he thinks the FDA was probably aiming to bring ethanol byproducts used in feed under the rule, in part, because that product often uses antibiotics to keep bacteria growth at bay.

“We just don’t want to get swept in as collateral damage,” said Gatza. “It seems kind of silly.”

Other groups, however, think some of the concerns raised by the smaller brewers are overblown. The Beer Institute and the American Feed Industry Association both contend that the FDA’s proposal wouldn’t actually require that breweries dry and package their grains. Still, the Beer Institute wants its members’ byproducts to be exempt from the whole proposal.

The feed industry, meanwhile, disagrees with making any exemptions to the rule.

“We hear what they’re saying,” said Richard Sellers, senior vice president of legislative and regulatory affairs for AFIA, a group that recently logged a 100-page comment on the FDA’s proposed rule. “But I don’t think we can accept a broad-based exemption.”