Pint of prosecco anyone?

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Chippy_Tea

Administrator.
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
Messages
51,059
Reaction score
19,016
Location
Ulverston Cumbria.
The government recently lowering the weekly unit figures so I am at a bit of a loss as to why they think its a good idea to move to pint bottles.



Pint-sized bottles of still and sparkling wine are to appear on shelves in the UK, the government has said.

1703692343039.png



The new 568ml size will offer more choice for customers, according to the Department for Business and Trade.
It also said it will not introduce new rules on selling in imperial measures.
Legislation to be tabled in the new year will see the pint-sized bottles sold in supermarkets, pubs, clubs and restaurants.
After Brexit, ministers had looked at changing laws inherited from the EU that mean traders can use Britain's traditional weighing system only alongside the metric one.
The new legislation will also allow still wine to be sold in 200ml containers, potentially paving the way for an expansion in the canned wine market.
While sparkling wines will be allowed to be sold in 500ml bottles, between a standard full (750ml) and half (375ml) size.
Currently, still wine cannot be sold in 200ml quantities and sparkling wine cannot be sold in 500ml amounts.
However, it remains to be seen what the demand will be for pint-sized wine bottles among producers and bottlers.
Pint-sized bottles for champagne were said to be the favourite size of British wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill, and were on shelves until 1973 when the UK joined the European Common Market.
The government has confirmed it is not planning to change the rules on selling in imperial measures after Brexit.
Ministers looked at changing laws inherited from the EU that mean traders can use Britain's traditional weighing system only alongside the metric one.
EU rules meant traders could display imperial measurements - such as pounds and ounces - only alongside metric, and they could not be more prominent.
They hit the headlines in 2001 following the prosecution of the "metric martyrs", a group of market traders convicted of selling goods using only imperial, although they were not enforced rigorously afterwards.
The rules were initially copied over after Brexit, but Boris Johnson's government subsequently announced they would be reviewed as part of a plans to "capitalise on the benefits of Brexit".
The then-prime minister pledged to change the rules ahead of the 2019 election, calling imperial measurements an "ancient liberty" and adding he saw "no reason why people should be prosecuted" for using them.
But the government has now said it will not change the rules, after 98.7% of respondents to a consultation favoured using metric as the main measurement unit for sales, as now, or as the only unit.

BBC News.
 
Have they got nothing better to do 🤔
They've got to find benefits of Brexit somewhere.

Metric is the Lingua Franca and so will continue to be the standard measurement in everything but a pub pint because it'll actually hurt producers to use imperial (because the consumer doesn't understand it as well). Hence producers will always want metric (unless it's imperial already, and with the exception of breweries I can't actually think of anything that's produced in imperial anymore).
We have standard sizes for bottles of wine and have for decades, if not centuries. Moving to a pint bottle (WTAF?!?) Will mean new bottle manufacturing, new filing machines, new packaging, more hassle when transporting because it doesn't stack with existing bottles, and more confusion for the consumer (who will most likely "go with what they know") - all for zero actual benefit.
 
It's obviously linked to a "survey" that "someone " voted for...
Like that 20mph...
It was. The EU referendum. This is our sovereignty. It comes from the idea that because Churchill enjoyed a pint of Pol Roger with his cornflakes, if we dictate that we can sell champagne by the same measure (we always could ) we'll cease to be the international laughing stock we've become.
 
Another Brexit bonus ... sock it to them in Brussels... the election is in the bag.
Remember the middle ages when every county, dukedom had their own weights & measures?
One of my first jobs in the UK was with a civil engineering company which involved billing clients for work in progress - one item I still remember and had to smile at the time. "put up road mileage signs every x number of kilometres". Of course even then (40+) years business worked in metric.
But seriously, it should be the government's responsibility to ensure we can rely on exact weights & measures, and have a way of easily comparing unit prices. Well at least we are allowed to drink Bollinger out of pint glasses (couldn't we always?).
 

Latest posts

Back
Top