What the hell! Not leffe!?!

[Monkhouse]

I’m really quite disgusted at this, why the hell have they changed the abv of leffe blonde from 6.6% to 6%?!
I only checked the back of the bottle as it tasted watery and thin. Guess I wont be drinking leffe in the uk ever again.

 

[dad_of_jon]

oh dear, a brexit bonus or taking the uk consumer for fools? maybe both. It is still full strength in JDW atm.

 

[Monkhouse]

Whats jdw? Apparently it’s only lower % for the uk market according to Google. So sick of the uk crapping all over Belgian beers. First Stella now leffe

 

[Scrattajack]

This guy's not happy either...

 

[prog99]

Whats jdw? Apparently it’s only lower % for the uk market according to Google. So sick of the uk crapping all over Belgian beers. First Stella now leffe

Stella was never a great loss (I used to do some work in Belgium and the locals said it was only for tourists and alcoholics)

Leffe looks like its brewed over here now.

 

[Scrattajack]

Whats jdw?

JD Wetherspoon, I think.

Might be an idea to trawl your local shops and buy up the good stuff. Should have a decent shelf life at 6.6%.

 

[Empty bottle]

A good excuse to have a wee dram of whisky with your weak beer.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

oh dear, a brexit bonus or taking the uk consumer for fools? maybe both.

It's because of the increases in duty which are needed to partly replace the £bns of tax lost due to Brexit, and partly because the government has identified changing the duty system to favour draught over smallpack as something that they couldn't do under existing EU rules. And they're really desperate to do stuff to show that we're "free", regardless of the knock-on effects.

So the tax on bottles of beer is going up, and that means ABV reductions to keep beer at the same price points. You're also going to see a lot of weaker beers being reduced to 3.4% to go under a new tax boundary. Likewise it is going to be very hard for breweries to sell anything over 8.5% as the duty has doubled. One to pay attention to is Huyghe, who used to brew a special 7.5% version of Delirium for the UK to fit under the old strong beer limit, hopefully they will now send us the standard 8.5% version.

 

[Clint]

I shall be brewing my own Leffe clone. Which will be just as nice as the real one and get me just as spangled. It will however be considerably cheaper AND 6.6% (or more).

 

[Monkhouse]

Yeah, just another reason to homebrew

 

[chthon]

AbInbev, a bank with brewing as marketing instrument.

 

[Birdsnestbrewery]

It's a shame it's true.

 

[YeastFace]

Can you actually taste the difference in a 0.6% reduction in alcohol, assuming the recipe is otherwise the same?

 

[Birdsnestbrewery]

I admit I haven't tried it but based on the video above and a friend of mine who is a big leffe drinker I would expect that the recipe has changed somewhat and it's not just a 0.6 abv reduction.

 

[Sadfield]

I'd be more inclined to think ABINBEV brew it exactly the same way in Belgium, except for adding more de-oxygenated water post fermentation to hit the lower abv. Much less work than developing a new recipe or gearing another brewery to brew it.

 

[Rodcx500z]

It's beyond me why people only protest about oil i just don't get it

 

[Clint]

I will be brewing,soon hopefully, the Leffe Blonde recipe as supplied by Cheshire Cat in the 2022 thread "Christmas beer ideas". Talking of Chesh....not seen him about in a good while. I hope he's doing alright!

 

[The Cat]

This is bad news although I didn't buy it that often. I brewed a clone a few times though which was amazing so that's what I'll get ready for Christmas.

 

[Agentgonzo]

I will be brewing,soon hopefully, the Leffe Blonde recipe as supplied by Cheshire Cat in the 2022 thread "Christmas beer ideas". Talking of Chesh....not seen him about in a good while. I hope he's doing alright!

Doesn't seem to have been active since April. You can't even tag him with @Cheshire Cat. I wonder if he deactivated his account?

 

[Clint]

For those interested here's the recipe. Any further thoughts welcome but I'm gonna use this as a starting point as it's popped up a good many times during the "what are you drinking" section.