Should Beer Be Considered Food?

The craft beer community has long debated how certain laws apply to beverage alcohol manufacturing, especially regarding whether animals should be allowed in facilities that produce and serve beer. There seems to be a disconnect between the written law and how it's commonly applied. While some breweries have dogs or cats that provide emotional support to staff, live animals generally don’t belong in a food preparation environment. The confusion lies in whether beer should be treated as a food substance for consumer safety or viewed differently.

Beer is classified as a controlled substance for both consumer safety and taxation purposes, but its categorization as food remains murky. Unlike food handling practices, beer manufacturing doesn’t necessarily follow the same stringent guidelines, raising the question: Should beer be held to the same standard as food for safety purposes?

The History and Connection of Beer and Food

Beer is made from four simple ingredients: barley, hops, water, and yeast. Often referred to as "liquid bread," beer shares a deep historical connection with breadmaking. Both are fundamental products that helped shape human civilization. For centuries, beer played a crucial role in making water safe to drink by eliminating disease-causing pathogens. The sugars from barley, combined with the antibacterial properties of hops, yeast, and the heat generated during brewing, made beer a reliable source of clean drinking water long before Germ Theory explained how diseases spread.

The Start of Food Safety Laws

The need for food safety laws emerged during the Progressive Era in North America, a time marked by efforts to regulate the growing industrial food supply. This era brought about significant legislative changes aimed at protecting consumers, largely driven by works like Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, which exposed the unsanitary conditions in meatpacking plants. The public outrage that followed led to the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act, both of which set the foundation for modern food safety regulations.

These laws were designed to protect consumers from spoiled foods and the pathogens they carried, marking the start of contemporary food health and safety practices. However, while food safety laws progressed, alcoholic beverages were treated differently due to cultural and legal shifts.

The Impact of Prohibition on Beer and Food Distinction

Prohibition, enacted through the Volstead Act, played a significant role in separating alcohol from food. By classifying any beverage containing more than 0.5% ethanol as "intoxicating," Prohibition effectively drew a line between food products and alcoholic beverages. This division persists today, with beverages often categorized as either "soft" (non-alcoholic) or "hard" (alcoholic), reinforcing the notion that beer and wine belong to the same category as hard spirits.

This separation was primarily driven by control measures rather than consumer safety concerns, which is why the legal restrictions surrounding alcohol often focus more on regulation than on protecting public health.

Should Beer Be Considered Food?

The debate over whether beer should be treated as food is crucial, as it touches on the very foundation of Western law—interpreting the written word. The issue with current beverage alcohol and food safety laws is that they don’t clearly address whether alcohol should be classified as food. Beverage alcohol workers aren’t required to comply with the same food handling regulations, nor are food service staff held to the same sanitation standards for beverage alcohol.

So, should beer be treated as food? The inconsistency in applying food handling laws to alcohol manufacturing highlights the confusion. It seems unjust for regulatory bodies to selectively apply food safety laws to beverage alcohol when convenient and ignore them when it’s favorable. Ultimately, any regulation should establish a clear baseline for consumer protection, free from ambiguity.

While it may not be necessary to hold beer to the same standard as food handling practices, regulations should prioritize consumer safety rather than simply controlling the production and sale of alcohol.