I'm still convinced that somebody, somewhere along the line (and I suspect it's either the grain suppliers or the malsters) are trousering a pretty penny. Even so, some homebrew suppliers are showing increases well north of £7.50 a sack and I wonder why?
I suspect that price fixing for grain is based on a similar
racket cartel system that fixes the price of electricity, whereby the most economical producers have to charge the same as the most expensive producer and money just falls into their laps.
@the baron has got the measure of things and I won't repeat it all here, but let's be very sure that we, the brewers and the retailers are being fleeced, shafted, taken for a bunch of Dane kings, etc etc, while some here only want to make excuses for the poor darlings. But they've got us by the short and curlies unless we all decide to grow our own and how many of us can do that?