Spent Brewery Grains to Farms Protected

Liz Ruskin/APRN
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, along with beer-makers around the country, is celebrating a recent clarification from the Food and Drug Administration about spent grains, a byproduct of the brewing process.
Beer-makers often donate their spent grains to farms to use as animal feed. But proposed changes to the rules for animal feed producers had brewers fearing they were going to face a pile of new red tape.
Murkowski, who is co-chair of the Senate Brewers Caucus, took up the cause.
In a sternly worded letter to the FDA in April, she said the rules would destroy the symbiotic relationship between Alaska’s brewers and farmers.
But the FDA has been saying for months it was all a mistake. The agency says it never meant to apply the animal feed rule to breweries, and that’s now spelled out in the rule.
Murkowski, in a written statement Monday, said she appreciated the FDA’s new approach.