After a lengthy delay that included much fretting among industry insiders, the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) were unveiled earlier this month. Any fears that anti-alcohol activists had infiltrated the quinquennial process were eased, as the new guidelines preach moderation over specific daily drink allowances.
Beer Marketer’s Insights senior editor Christopher Shepard, who has followed the process closely, joined the Brewbound Podcast to discuss the DGA, the fraught path to publication and what this could mean for brewers.
“The overall guidance didn’t really change,” Shepard said of the DGA’s move to recommend moderation over the former standard daily limit of two drinks for men and one for women. “They just decided to take the specifics away.”
Industry trade groups have celebrated the DGA’s embrace of moderation, particularly as it pertains to beer, which has long been touted as an alcoholic beverage that can be consumed in moderation.
“One of the reasons it’s been viewed as a win by the industry writ large, and by a coalition of industry trade organizations that came together, is that they came together because there was a very real threat that the Dietary Guidelines were going to tilt towards or embrace a ‘no safe level’ [of alcohol consumption] rhetoric,” Shepard said. “That threat was, in fact, real.”
The prior recommendation of two or one daily drinks detailed a drink as 12 oz. of 5% ABV beer, 5 oz. of 12% ABV wine or 1.5 oz. of liquor. Shepard posited that the move away from that method may not sit well with the spirits industry.
“There are probably some folks in the distilling world that are not so pleased that that’s gone,” he said. “There are probably some folks in the brewing world that are a little bit happier that that’s no longer on the books.”
Before the featured interview, Zoe and Jess discuss recent beer industry headlines, including a proposed deal between the Reyes Beverage Group and Republic National Distributing Company, 2 Towns Ciderhouse’s acquisition of Seattle Cider and the somewhat heartening data Circana published in the past month.
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