evanvine said:
On the other hand EB, much to my annoyance, they have all dropped their "own brand" ciders from 6% to 5.3%.
Maybe a drop in ocean, but it's there!
You may or may have not noticed most big commercial brewers moving towards 4% ABV
Becks VIER
Stella 4%
Carling moving from 4.1% ABV to 4.0ABV
All due to less duty having to be paid to the treasury
All the governments moves are nothing to do with cleaning up the drinking problem, they are subsidising plenty of problem drinkers to the tune of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, as alcoholism is now classed as a disability, (an alchoholic can claim a better mobility allowance than a blind person) alcoholics also get more benefits to pay for their problem.
The government just want to raise more revenue, they are currently trying to bring in minimum pricing, about 50p per unit
they say to stop binge drinking, but they will slap a windfall tax on the brewers to therefore the big brewers will become tax collectors, every unit of alcohol in this country will have std duty + VAT+ a new anti Binge drinking Tax.
Smoking is bringing in less and less revenue each year, therefore alcohol has to be the new smoking, It wont be long before they ban drinking alcohol in pubs the rate they are going on, that is if any are left.
I think our hobby may therefore attract quite a few more people, in the coming years.
rant over
shane