For craft brewers, navigating the complex world of federal and state regulatory approvals can be a frustrating process. In the first quarter of 2017, more than half of all labels submitted to the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) were rejected for corrections. This means spending more time on design revisions, resubmitting labels, and, possibly, delays in getting products to market.
Here are five basic tips to help avoid having your labels rejected by the TTB.
Alcohol Content
There are a handful of ways to state the alcohol content of your product, and the everyday expression “ABV” isn’t one of them. But that’s the term we all use in conversation, right? Even though most of us simply say “ABV” when talking about how much boozy punch we can expect to get out of our favorite imperial stout or how “sessionable” an IPA is, the TTB doesn’t accept the everyday abbreviation as an adequate way of stating alcohol content. Instead, try “Alc./Vol.” with the percentage in front (e.g., “6.5% Alc./Vol.”).