Looks like there could be more home brewers on the way......

[BarnsleyBrewer]

Well I was contacted by BBC 3 Counties Radio this morning as they were discussing The rising cost of alcohol and a possible resurgence in home brewing. . .


With the Result . . . . .


Yours truly is talking on BBC3 Counties Radio between 5:30PM and 6:00 PM on the subject of brewing at home :shock:

Better lay off the :drink: until afterwards :lol:

Nice one. :thumb:
Can we listen online?

 

[tubby_shaw]

Well I was contacted by BBC 3 Counties Radio this morning as they were discussing The rising cost of alcohol and a possible resurgence in home brewing. . .


With the Result . . . . .


Yours truly is talking on BBC3 Counties Radio between 5:30PM and 6:00 PM on the subject of brewing at home :shock:

Better lay off the :drink: until afterwards :lol:

Nice one. :thumb:
Can we listen online?

Yes
HERE

 

[Swift Pint]

Nice, getting ready to tune in.

:thumb:

 

[Vossy1]

Whilst I see the point in what is trying to be done by raising prices/introducing minimum pricing I do not agree it will have any impact on binge drinking, which is the main reason it's being introduced. It will affect those who rely on a regular fix of alcohol, and that's the worrying thing, those folk will not stop, and they will raise the funds to supply their habit no matter what.
In the mean time honest folk who like a pint/glass of wine for the ladies will be made to pay more for the privilege, and they are the masses, not the minority.
Why are we tackling the cost of treating the minority by imposing a tax on the majority.......again! Either way we'll be made to pay :evil:

It really gets on my tits this sort of stuff :lol:

 

[dennisking]

Whilst I see the point in what is trying to be done by raising prices/introducing minimum pricing I do not agree it will have any impact on binge drinking, which is the main reason it's being introduced. It will affect those who rely on a regular fix of alcohol, and that's the worrying thing, those folk will not stop, and they will raise the funds to supply their habit no matter what.
In the mean time honest folk who like a pint/glass of wine for the ladies will be made to pay more for the privilege, and they are the masses, not the minority.
Why are we tackling the cost of treating the minority by imposing a tax on the majority.......again! Either way we'll be made to pay :evil:

It really gets on my tits this sort of stuff :lol:

This is the crux of the matter, my wife drinks wine so we will pay more but she is not going to be throwing up in the high st. on a Friday night. Politicians have absolutely no idea, all they are looking for is a way to appease the Daily Mail readership. These measures will have no effect what so ever.

 

[Vossy1]

Politicians have absolutely no idea

Au contraire......they haven't raised the tax on spirits for quite some time
I know what you mean

 

[dennisking]

Au contraire......they haven't raised the tax on spirits for quite some time

sssssh they may hear.

 

[Baz Chaz]

....... Politicians have absolutely no idea

:thumb:

 

[Reburner]

Despite most people on this thread 'thinking' it will not work there appears to be evidence that minimum alcohol pricing does have an effect. This is from the BBC

Minimum pricing has been used in Canada for the best part of 20 years. It varies from province to province, but there is a wealth of evidence it works.

In British Columbia, a 10% increase in minimum price has shown decreases in consumption ranging from 1.5% for beer to 9% for wine.

Saskatchewan has had even more success. It has combined minimum pricing with a cut in taxes on low-alcohol beer - which now accounts for a third of the beer market.

 

[Dtothe3]

That appears to be taken out of context. If 1 in 100 moves to homebrew in response to the increase then that is the improvement shot.

Also those stats say nothing about the problem drinkers. Nevermind the fact that in Canada, it's legal to grow cannabis for your own consumption, making comparison even more difficult due to social norms.

In this country, the problems with drinking have more to do with the policing requirement for 2 nights of the week, the current a&e crisis on those nights, drink driving and the long term stress on the NHS (no worries there, Cameron is gonna make sure there is no NHS). Also domestic abuse as was quite rightly pointed out earlier, which is a hidden stat in a way.

Don't get me wrong, I just think without referring to stats regarding problem drinkers seeking help and looking at related issues on both sides of the great pond, then that statistic is utterly without merit.

Also if you want to find out whether the BBC is biased towards government policy or not, just ask their palistinian correspondant. If you think the BBC doesn't carry advertisements, just ask Andrew Lloyd Webber.

 

[calumscott]

There is a hell of a lot of bluster around this potential policy.

Someone, not sure of their political persuasion said that the problem is largely cultural. I agree.

That leaves the question of how you change culture.

WARNING: This is the bit where I go off-piste and probably offend people. My intention is not so, it is merely to get right to the nub of the problem.

Education? Nope. That's telling people what they should be doing. That is seen as them Vs us, "who are they to tell me what to drink and when?" It will, and is, ignored not just by the tramp juice swilling masses, but by the middle and upper classes too.

Legislation? More likely to succeed. But it's expensive and difficult and the results will take a long time to come, as people come to understand that they will end up with a record just for being too p***ed gradually society will become averse to that risk. Yes you'll lock a few people up in the short term but it takes a massive and sustained pressure to change culture for the long term. That's really expensive, we can't afford it.

Taxation? (or other forms of monetary manipulation) Again, more likely to succeed than education. The concept is that you make it more financially difficult for the target groups - and this really does appear to be targetted at the young, not affluent, "drink just to get p***ed" group - to take the actions you are trying to curb. Minimum pricing does, on the face of it, exactly that. The problem, we're led to believe, is that people are getting most of the way there at home on tramp juice then going to the pub and finishing the job with a couple of pints of f***ers or wife beater, thowing up on the barmaid and picking a fight with the taxi driver. If the hunch is right then these people have a finite cash reserve to get wasted on. If the price of tramp juice doubles to £4 for two litres then pre-loading becomes expensive too and hopefully you bring people under the "I'm wasted" threshold. Once you've done that, you have less people doing it, therefore less people thinking it's cool and maybe just maybe with education and legistlation to back it up you stand a chance of pushing people towards responsible drinking...

...and by that I mean understanding and taking an interest in drink, the production, the craft, what's good, what's bad, what's ugly. Let's face it, if you can't get smashed for a tenner, and tramp juice is not far off the price of good drink then a proportion of the affected will spend their tenner on slightly less, better drink and appreciate drinking the way drinking is supposed to be appreciated. So when you add the legislation and enforcement on top and back it up with education (not preaching about the evils of drink but education around good drink, craft production and the positives of "good" social drinking) then you have the package that can make the difference.

Will it work? Probably not, because the minimum price will be set too low due to pressure from the s**te drink manufacturers and other lobbying groups and the whole thing will get watered down, cash won't be available to toughen up on the "pre-loaders" and the drinks industry as a whole will oppose it all and not provide the right educational angle as all they're interested in is bulk volume, commoditised alcohol sales.

Shame really, done right it could make a real difference.

 

[Dronfieldbrewer]

More homebrewers....Hmm, does that mean that the costs of raw materials may go up?

 

[oldstout]

Keep up rob, I posed that question further up :grin: :grin: :grin:

Im planning on working in the alcohol trade and well if the price goes up the more profit i will make so it wont affect the brewers only the econemy and the rest of britian. The human race was thought to have become farmers to be able to grow grains to make beer. So in affect if it wasnt for beer we would still be hunter gaverers.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

See me after class Devon, we need to work on one of two things, either your spelling etc, or your alcohol intake affecting it :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:



:

 

[bobsbeer]

I think the current situation is one of those 'unintended consequenses' problems. Maybe I'm wrong but the practice of preloading is a consequence of increased taxation. As the price goes up in the pubs and clubs due to taxation and other factors it makes economic sense to preload at home on cheap stuff and reduce spending later on the expensive stuff. In my view it has been the polititians (of all parties)who created this mess in the first place. They saw beer and wine as a soft touch to raise tax. Now we the moderate majority have to pay to pick up the pieces. It's too late to just drop the tax, the damage is done and the culture has been changed. The answer is to make quality alcohol more acceptable and available. But whatever is done it will take years to change the culture, and even then there are no guarantees it will make a jot of difference in the long run. Polititians are not in this game for the long haul so they have no long term incentive to change things. They just look for tomorrows headlines and the next election, and no further. The austerity now situation is so they can give it away at the end of this parliament and say how good are we. In the hope (very likely) that we will believe them, and vote them back in.

 

[pittsy]

£3 for cheap booze , lets say it increases to around £6 for same booze , it will stop no one !! just means now they spend a bit more , **** now cost £7 a packet , does this stop kids smoking ....nope just means they spend more.... price unless it goes through the roof (and i hope it doesn't) won't make much difference . Not sure what will but price won't

 

[blackdouglas]

More homebrewers....Hmm, does that mean that the costs of raw materials may go up?

It could push prices down as that is what tends to happen when more gets sold, unless resources become scarce.

If this nonsense really gets out of hand though we might start too see more private social gathering/parties where homebrew is sold 'illegally' on the premises. This is already starting to happen with the smoking ban, so I believe. I've been to a few where they have a small bar and sell cans of lager from the supermarket at £2, cheaper than the nightclubs, you can smoke a number of tobaccos of your choice, no 3am closing time and no arsehole doormen coming along and herding you around the place. I don't get invited to them anymore, because I'm not cool enough.

In theory, I could get some brews on rotation and friends could come round and have some and 'if they feel like it' stick a few quid in the pot so that I make enough money to keep buying the kits and I get essentially free beer, a bit like running my own pub. Sounds illegal, but it's not. Why should it be?

Would still rather go to a pub than have friends round all the bloody time and getting pissed in my house though. I like going to pubs, but these days I can barely afford to even drink in Wetherspoons any more. What can you do?

 

[graysalchemy]

In theory, I could get some brews on rotation and friends could come round and have some and 'if they feel like it' stick a few quid in the pot so that I make enough money to keep buying the kits and I get essentially free beer, a bit like running my own pub. Sounds illegal, but it's not. Why should it be?

Because

"The duty on beer produced in the United Kingdom shall not be chargeable on beer produced by a person who produces beer only for his own domestic use."

Having a party where people make a donation would not be considered 'own domestic use'.

There was a whole thread here ona similar vane.

:thumb: :thumb:

And if they could do you for selling home brew they would probably get you under Section 63 of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994

See here :lol: :lol:

 

[PD]

yes sometimes the Police get it completely wrong and go ape-*****.

however a lot of time these " all night raves " do cause serious problems for the local communities, with their associated problems of loud music noise cars drugs etc. so decisions have to be made.

But my beef is with the government and its attitude of not what's good right and moral, but how much can we make out of it. People drink smoke and do other things, it gets popular so the government decide to step in with their regulations and taxes to make sure they get their unfair share. Its not based on being a fair society. Of course everyone understands the needs for some regulation to stop the minority spoiling life for the majority.
An example of the govts, concern has been muted recently re car taxation there's been a big drive to make more fuel efficient and less polluting cars with the incentive of folks paying less car tax if they have smaller car. Sounds good and fair. However its been too successful and they are now worried that too many folks are using low taxed cars and their revenue is diminishing so their proposals are to " look again at the banding of cars into certain tax ranges" You can bet they aint going to let more of us off paying road tax, a lot of the free tax and low tax cars will be upgraded.

 

[calumscott]

Ah, to miss the point...

Simplenomics:

The country has to spend lots of money every year. We, though the various governments we elected over the years have determined what we spend it on. So add up all the spending on everything, NHS, Dole, Services, Debt repayments and everything else we, as a country, have to pay for.

That is how much money needs to come in during the year.

Now you have the job of dividing up how you get that money. You can, to a certain degree, do some social engineering (road fuel duty and road fund licence to push people into smaller more effecient cars is a great example) but largely you are constrained by who has got money to give and how much you can get them to give without real backlash.

It's not "how much we can make" - the country is in permentant debt. It's more "where the f**k are we going to get £nnnnnnnnn from?"

 

[PD]

yes silly of me to think of a fair and just society....
I mean who needs a wage of £2 million per year plus £20 million pay out when you screw up. Especially when Job seekers say you need £71 per week to live on. ( and I'm not talking about scroungers, lots of genuine folks out their unable to get jobs. )