April's FHM, brewdog article.

[Baldbrewer]

Aprils edition of FHM has a 4 page spread on those Brewdog boys.
Very interesting point about "crowdsourcing" to raise the capital for the brewery expansion.

also a 2 page spread on different brews from microbreweries around the country.

I suppose its good to raise the profile of craft beers so people can expand their beer tastes.

I just worry about the idiots in charge of the country discovering yet another tax source!

perhaps I can "crowd source" from my friends who come round to taste test :drink: so I can fund a new shiny brew rig :grin:

 

[alawlor66430]

The government is more than likely to already be thinking of ways to implement taxes on us. It'll be kits first then grains later. It will happen.

 

[calumscott]

No it won't.

They can't tax it anywhere near alcohol duty, standard rate VAT on malt and extracts is the best they could achieve. Anything else would require specific legislation and the cost of introducing it (monetary and political) and policing it would result in a negative return for the exchequer.

 

[calumscott]

Ah... they already take standard rate VAT... :lol:

From VAT Notice 701/14 - Food

3.7.4 Ingredients for home beer and wine making
Products that are canned, bottled, packaged or prepared for use in home wine or beer making are standard-rated. This includes:

kits for home brewing, wine making etc;
retail packs of hopped malt extract, malted barley, roasted barley, hops;
special wine and brewers’ yeasts;
grape concentrates; and
retail packs of foods, which are specialised to home wine making, such as dried elderberries or sloes for making country wines.
You must also standard-rate any general food product that you hold out for sale specifically for home wine making or brewing, such as fresh, dried or canned fruit, fruit juices and concentrates, barley, glucose and plant malt extract. In this context, you hold them out for sale for home brewing and wine making if you:

sell them through a retail outlet that specialises in home brewing and wine making materials;
sell them in the home brewing and wine making department or section of a general outlet; and
label, advertise or otherwise display them as materials for home brewing or wine making, or provide with them or on their packaging any brewing or wine making recipes, or instructions for using them in the making of beer or wine (for example, the amount of sugar required for their fermentation or the type of yeast to be used).

 

[Stu]

No it won't.

They can't tax it anywhere near alcohol duty, standard rate VAT on malt and extracts is the best they could achieve. Anything else would require specific legislation and the cost of introducing it (monetary and political) and policing it would result in a negative return for the exchequer.

It would be absolutely impossible to Police anyway.

When people can make wine and beer out of just about anything with a bag of sugar and some yeast very simply, they would never keep up.

As I was pointing out to someone today, you could buy all the kit you need to make a gallon of WOW (including hardware) for under a tenner using a 5L bottle of water. Next time you want to make it would be even cheaper because you would only need some sugar and juice.

 

[alawlor66430]

If homebrewing keeps becoming more and more popular and a large amount of money is being spent on it every year, I would have thought the government would try and get their hands on a share of it one way or another, more than the standard VAT already charged.

 

[alawlor66430]

No it won't.

They can't tax it anywhere near alcohol duty, standard rate VAT on malt and extracts is the best they could achieve. Anything else would require specific legislation and the cost of introducing it (monetary and political) and policing it would result in a negative return for the exchequer.

It would be absolutely impossible to Police anyway.

When people can make wine and beer out of just about anything with a bag of sugar and some yeast very simply, they would never keep up.

As I was pointing out to someone today, you could buy all the kit you need to make a gallon of WOW (including hardware) for under a tenner using a 5L bottle of water. Next time you want to make it would be even cheaper because you would only need some sugar and juice.

I agree that fruit wines would be untouchable for the same reasons, I was thinking mostly of beer.

 

[Stu]

I agree that fruit wines would be untouchable for the same reasons, I was thinking mostly of beer.

But even then, how are they going to heavily tax the ingredients without accidentally ending up heavily taxing people who want to make bread (for instance). And the vinegar trade. And so on.

Perhaps they'll heavily tax the shop bought tins, but even then, they have been selling for years and it's never really been picked up on. I wouldn't have thought sales of those had been going up?

 

[calumscott]

But that's just it, it's never going to be worth their trouble.

They would need a whole new tax to do it and that's a change to statute - a whole new section of the law of the land - which, fortunately (and one of the reasons why Britain is such a stable place), is really hard to do. Further, the backlash would be seriously damaging to any party attempting it and the revenue generated would never outweigh the cost of administration. Think about it, I brew regularly and yet I still spend more money on shop and pub bought beer wine and spirits than on brewing ingredients!!

And as far as homebrewing goes, we, as a group, are probably the heaviest users of HB products...

 

[mattrickl06]

I can imagine that they will try it - I use electric cigs which are currently just standard rated, but every time I go out there are more people vaping and less people smoking. The government will soon want their pound of flesh on propolene glycol as they probable will with malted barley

W*nkers!!

 

[alawlor66430]

Maybe it's just me then and my take on our government, it just seems that when something booms the gvmt step in and stake their claim, it's always been the way, and with the country as it is at the moment I wouldn't be at all surprised if I found out they were going put tax on some part of the home brewing community, like I said before though I'd imagine kits in cans would be first to get it, but hey it might never happen.

 

[calumscott]

I agree that fruit wines would be untouchable for the same reasons, I was thinking mostly of beer.

But even then, how are they going to heavily tax the ingredients without accidentally ending up heavily taxing people who want to make bread (for instance). And the vinegar trade. And so on.

Perhaps they'll heavily tax the shop bought tins, but even then, they have been selling for years and it's never really been picked up on. I wouldn't have thought sales of those had been going up?

Vinegar trade is specifically excluded from having to be licenced for duty under the Alcohol and Liquor Duties Act (IIRC).

But that's all about duty on commercially produced alcohol - they do produce it commercially to then turn it into vinegar so need the exemption.

 

[calumscott]

Maybe it's just me then and my take on our government, it just seems that when something booms the gvmt step in and stake their claim, it's always been the way, and with the country as it is at the moment I wouldn't be at all surprised if I found out they were going put tax on some part of the home brewing community, like I said before though I'd imagine kits in cans would be first to get it, but hey it might never happen.

Yes, but only where they can actually turn a profit on it!!! We are not even fish fry in a gigantic ocean. It will NEVER be profitable for the exchequer to attempt to take more than standard VAT on the stuff we use.

EDIT: That's "never" as in "never (unless more than 50% of the population start brewing ALL of their consumption)" or "never (unless 100% of the population start brewing more than 50% or their consumption)"...

 

[alawlor66430]

Well I'm happy that the community's growing and I'm happy that such a diverse group of individuals can come together under a common interest, but lets hope it doesn't get to popular !! Or beware the tax man lol.

 

[calumscott]

Well I'm happy that the community's growing and I'm happy that such a diverse group of individuals can come together under a common interest, but lets hope it doesn't get to popular !! Or beware the tax man lol.

Hear hear! In this instance, I find myself in a paradox.

On one hand I rail against the mass-market food industry and their manipluation of the market and the buying public's perception of food, "good" food and their engineering of the disconnection between farm and plate which results in "us", the homebrewers and foodies, being such a small industry as to not only keep us under the radar but make us practically invisible full-stop. I long for people to come out from the safe, warm big-brothery blanket of comoditised food into the brave exciting world of mud, animals, growing, rare-breeds, home produce, cookery (from raw ingredients)...

On the other hand keeping the mass-market massive keeps us well, as we are... Not just under the radar, but utterly "not worth looking for in the first place"...

Anyway, truth is the vast majority of people are lazy and would rather never have to think about where their food or drink comes from and that just won't change to any particular degree. And that means that we will remain totally safe from Hector.

 

[mattrickl06]

Well I'm happy that the community's growing and I'm happy that such a diverse group of individuals can come together under a common interest, but lets hope it doesn't get to popular !! Or beware the tax man lol.

From a purely selfish POV I agree totally

 

[bunkerbrewer]

EDIT: That's "never" as in "never (unless more than 50% of the population start brewing ALL of their consumption)" or "never (unless 100% of the population start brewing more than 50% or their consumption)"...

I've often wondered - does anyone have a rough idea how many homebrewers there are in the UK?

 

[calumscott]

well, google isn't throwing up anything interesting...

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=431380

is about the best.

So we are sub 1%. I think VERY sub 1%...

Tens of thousands in any form, thousands taking it seriously I would say.

 

[Stu]

It's a bit like anything though.

I have a number of hobbies. One of them apparently has over 100,000 people signed up for the online service (which is free, but does have a premium service)
But I'd be surprised if 10% of those are active.

If I was surveyed, until recently I would have called myself an inactive homebrewer because I've done it before, I'm just not doing it at the moment.

Asking around our office, 2 out of 6 have tried it sometime in the past. One of our younger fellas (mid 20s) didn't realise how easy it was. He's waiting to see how mine turns out and is going to have a go himself (he has the space and the time, but isn't an outdoorsy sort of guy so it'll probably suit).

 

[jonewer]

Anything else would require specific legislation and the cost of introducing it (monetary and political) and policing it would result in a negative return for the exchequer.

Never stopped them before.

But that's just it, it's never going to be worth their trouble.

Never stopped them before.

It would be absolutely impossible to Police anyway.

Never stopped them before.