Al Spinelli, general manager of Frederick Brewing, said the brewery was permitted to continue produce the ale until it runs out of packaging materials that it had purchased before the ban. He said Hempen Ale should be completely off the shelves sometime this summer. You look at what the regulators are doing, and I say it's flatly illegal. But it'll cost you six figures to beat it. Complaints from a single consumer group, a agency spokeswoman said.
Outsiders accuse the agency of giving in to anti-drug zealots.
Larry Lesterud, who makes Hemp Ale for Humboldt Brewing in California, believes the crackdown was prompted by the White House. Last year, his shipment of hemp seeds was halted at the border, he said, by the Office of National Drug Control Policy - the White House drug czar. He said he can still legally bottle his Hemp Ale as long as he doesn't sell it across state lines. This is the White House saying we don't want hemp in America. They're really quite fascist about it.