TOPIC:

Surely we should have some sort of law that states a company that calls itself a brewery has to actually brew beer... But then that would cause a problem for start ups who contract brew.
Perhaps something that states if you are calling yourself an Irish brewery, the beer or perhaps a large percentage of it, say 90% must be brewed and fermented on the island of Ireland.

Where it's packaged is irrelevant.

The EBCU manifesto says: "Consumers have the right to know who brewed the beer and where it was brewed." That's all I really want to know. Whether they call themselves Irish or a brewery doesn't matter to me: just put on the label where that beer was made and by which company.

Irish labelling law at the moment just says that the label must have an address on it, but that can be any holding company, distributor or importer, and not even every Irish beer maker even complies with that (*cough*Brown Paper Bag*cough*). It [i:36ra9lr2]is[/i:36ra9lr2] illegal to mislead people on the origin of a product, but I suspect "Brewed in the EU" provides a nearly universal get-out clause there.

Yes, if our EBCU manifesto is taken on board by the government, that will be enough.

TBH, given the disregard that importers and distributors have for the existing laws on beer labelling, I'm not confident that new laws will actually improve things for the consumer. How often do you get a US beer with no ABV on it? It's illegal, it's anti-consumer, but neither the state nor the importer nor the retailer appears to give a shit.

"TheBeerNut":2fb8uxqx wrote: TBH, given the disregard that importers and distributors have for the existing laws on beer labelling, I'm not confident that new laws will actually improve things for the consumer. How often do you get a US beer with no ABV on it? It's illegal, it's anti-consumer, but neither the state nor the importer nor the retailer appears to give a shit.[/quote:2fb8uxqx]
How do Revenue charge an accurate excise duty on these imported beers with no ABV? Could these imports be declaring a lower strength ABV to reduce the excise duty, who is to know?

True, Actually I grabbed a case of founders all day IPA in drinkstore yesterday and all the bottles have a best before sticker attached to them, presumably by the importer or exporter. ABV is printed anyway but at least that shows some are at least taking it seriously.