Petition against the Small Brewers Relief reduction

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Hi @Hoddy

I don't know whether you've discussed the scale of your new brewing adventure elsewhere on the forum, but perhaps you could give some indication as to what sorts of volumes you're likely to be outputting?

To be honest you see, all this 2,100 hl vs 5,000 hl debate is meaningless quantities to us "5 gals at a time, every so often" brewers ... and as far as I can work out (presumably the 2,100 hl is per year?) that revised lower limit is looking like around 4,000 ltrs per week, or around 100 x 9 gallon firkins, or 200 pins, per week ... which to me seems like quite a large output, for a micro :?: ... am I missing something?

Cheers, PhilB
 
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Hi @Hoddy

I don't know whether you've discussed the scale of your new brewing adventure elsewhere on the forum, but perhaps you could give some indication as to what sorts of volumes you're likely to be outputting?

To be honest you see, all this 2,100 hl vs 5,000 hl debate is meaningless quantities to us "5 gals at a time, every so often" brewers ... and as far as I can work out (presumably the 2,100 hl is per year?) that revised lower limit is looking like around 4,000 ltrs per week, or around 100 x 9 gallon firkins, or 200 pins, per week ... which to me seems like quite a large output, for a micro :?: ... am I missing something?

Cheers, PhilB

Hey Phil, yes your right. In theory the potential lower limit to true micros seems sensible. But what you need to consider, and what you may not realise is the volume of beer that is produced and consumed. And a brewery producing 5000 hcl isn’t even coming close to scratching the surface. But combined across lots of small breweries it starts to add up. To put it into perspective tho. Breweries that will be affected immediately by this proposed change are about 150. That’s allot of businesses and jobs that will be lost. But multiply 50,000 by 150 and you see why the macros are after them. As for us, on our 10hcl kit, and with our on site tap room and local district a 2100 hcl wouldn’t affect our bottom line. However what it would do is affect our ability to grow as the jump in tax would hurt too much you and we would have to jump to a 30/40 bbl kit to make economies of scale just as profitable as 6BBL. And that is where the unfairness of this change lies and why these breweries want the relief change. It doesn't actually affect them in any way other that put the competition at a disadvantage and potentially closure. Vote and register against this unless you want no choice bland brown beer forever.
 
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The petition now stands at 19,501 only 80,499 to go before it reaches 100,000.

It needs a good kick up the **** to get it moving. :(
 
Serious question. Would it be in Wetherspoons interest for it to succeed?
 
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Hi @Hoddy

I don't know whether you've discussed the scale of your new brewing adventure elsewhere on the forum, but perhaps you could give some indication as to what sorts of volumes you're likely to be outputting?

To be honest you see, all this 2,100 hl vs 5,000 hl debate is meaningless quantities to us "5 gals at a time, every so often" brewers ... and as far as I can work out (presumably the 2,100 hl is per year?) that revised lower limit is looking like around 4,000 ltrs per week, or around 100 x 9 gallon firkins, or 200 pins, per week ... which to me seems like quite a large output, for a micro :?: ... am I missing something?

Cheers, PhilB
Hey Phil, yes your right. In theory the potential lower limit to true micros seems sensible. But what you need to consider, and what you may not realise is the volume of beer that is produced and consumed. And a brewery producing 5000 hcl isn’t even coming close to scratching the surface. But combined across lots of small breweries it starts to add up. To put it into perspective tho. Breweries that will be affected immediately by this proposed change are about 150. That’s allot of businesses and jobs that will be lost. But multiply 50,000 by 150 and you see why the macros are after them. As for us, on our 10hcl kit, and with our on site tap room and local district a 2100 hcl wouldn’t affect our bottom line. However what it would do is affect our ability to grow as the jump in tax would hurt do much you would have to jump to a 30/40 bbl kit to mane economies of scale just as profitable as 6BBL. And that is where the unfairness of this change lies why these breweries want the relief change. Vote and register against this unless you want no choice bland brown beer forever.


I have had at least two pro brewers previously tell me that they were at or approaching the current limit and it didn't make financial sense to increase output beyond it, the marginal taxation rate suddenly goes through the roof so you suddenly have to have massive growth to just stand still. Reducing that limit has to have the effect of strangling growth or planned growth for a much larger chunk of breweries and provide barriers to entry for others thinking about getting into brewing or investing in it.
 
I'm struggling to see what the issue with the current system is.

If I have this right:

The highest rate payable is 19p per litre, so call it 10p a pint. Under 5,000hl gets 50% relief, so the extra "cost" to the bigger brewers vs the very small brewers is 5p a pint.

If you're between 5,000hl and 30,000hl, [edit: you still get the benefit of the 50% relief on the first 5,000hl, you suddenly lose the relief on the first 2,500hl]. Once you go over 30,000hl, the relief starts tapering out until you get to 60,000hl.

Over 60,000hl, you're paying full rates.

So an extra 5p a pint is an issue for these big brewers, all of which would be passed on to the consumer in any case?

Also not buying it that the current system is a barrier to growth.
 
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