Legality

[Sean_Mc]

Purely out of curiosity when are you selling beer or unfermented wort?

A friend has asked me to brew a beer, he'll cover the cost of the ingredients and electric bill and will help on brew day.

I just wondered where we/I could cross the line as in selling beer or unfermented wort.

I've seen stories, I believe in Canada where you have to pitch the yeast yourself to be exempt of tax, but the company bottles the beer and it never leaves their building :hmm:

Just wondered how our UK law stands.



Hope I'm wording this right :wha:

 

[Good Ed]

watch out for the beer police :lol:

 

[caerleon]

Well...your not being paid to brew it are you? You are purely having you costs covered only.

I'm sure the tax man would say otherwise - Technically, I would have thought that wort is not beer, does it only become beer when it has yeast and is fermenting? i dont know.

 

[Sean_Mc]

Yeah its over thinking things. HBshops sell the ingredients with no problem, just wondered when the wort becomes beer legally :hmm:

Anyone wanna buy some fermenting BK at 1010

 

[evanvine]

Isn't it similar to buying kits, where, apart from water and heat, all you do is add yeast (provided by them)?

 

[Aleman]

The duty point is where the malt comes into the brewery. One thing HMCE checks (occaisionally) is you malt usage compared to your beer production . . . if there is a big discrepancy you better have some damn good reasons.

Brew on Premises work, but as the owner of the BOP you cannot help in any way with the production of the wort, they have to mash/ boil/cool/pitch themselves . . . You merely provide instruction in how to use the equipment.

When I had the opportunity of buying some 2.5BBL kit at a very silly price I nearly set up in business producing 'All wort kits' . . . basically 15 Litres of concentrated wort, plus a sachet of yeast of your choice (from a limited range), as long as I produced the wort/extract, and then sold it as foodstuff then there was no issue . . . But if anyone else was involved and took wort with them to ferment then technically I would have crossed the line . . . but the HMCE inspector I was dealing with did say that In his opinion it was fine . . . other inspectors may have a different opinion. . . . The biggest issue for me was environmental health and hygiene . . . and then the economy went **** up :twisted: :twisted:

 

[Sean_Mc]

Thanks Aleman :thumb:

BOP is the set up I'd seen, with companies sending groups there on team building exercises.

Could still be money in it, surely their all fed up playing paintballing

 

[graysalchemy]

I would be more concerned with the environmental health and health and safety gestapo. People paying money to visit your premises with boiling hot liquor and then letting them take it home to brew :nono: :nono: . Just think what would happen if someone got a dose of the sh*ts after going on a brewing team building course weather you brewed it or not your reputation would be in tatters.

That is obviously only my opinion.

:

AG

 

[Sean_Mc]

On the one I saw AG, you had to go back after a couple of weeks to bottle it. So the owners of the BOP had control of the temps and hygiene.