TOPIC:

Hi, I haven't been around here for ages. Hope everyone's been keeping well.

Anyway, lately I've been considering the option of importing and selling beers on a small scale. I reckon it would be nice to see a few more lambics and a more interesting selection of English ales (am I the only one sick of Shepherd Neame?) on the shelves of a few off licences and maybe even the Bull & Castle.

Anyway, does anyone have any familarity with this? My guess is that it's alright to sell it to people with licences but I can't sell it to the public directly (which would be my preference). Does that sound right?

Is import duty prohibitive? The revenue site is pretty difficult to navigate.

Is there anything else I'm forgetting about.

Thanks for reading. Any thoughts would be really appreciated.

Welcome back!

From brief conversations with Jonathan[/url:2d5dbtww], who's bringing American beer in, Revenue will do their level best to ensure you never make any money at all.

You will presumably need some class of secure bonded warehouse which they'll want to have a look at.

Good luck with it. In my opinion, what Ireland needs is stout. There are probably no more than half a dozen imported stouts available in Ireland. That needs fixed.

Thanks. We do need more stout. I think the craft beer market is flooded with
-Bottled bitter style British ale
-Strong Belgian Ales
-Hoppy American ales
-German Weizens

As I said, I was hoping to bring in some Lambics. I'd also like to see wits and yeah some stouts would bge good.

This warehouse thing is a blow. I was planning on doing it on such a small scale that I thought just a room in my gaff would do it. I'll investigate further.

specifically Hercule Stout and Podge Imperial Stout <!-- s:D --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_biggrin.gif" alt="" title="Very Happy" /><!-- s:D -->

&amp;quot;Wobbler&amp;quot;:333nsbae wrote: This warehouse thing is a blow. I was planning on doing it on such a small scale that I thought just a room in my gaff would do it. I'll investigate further.[/quote:333nsbae]It's a tax thing, I think. It's possible that you may be able to pay the tax up front so Revenue aren't bothered about what the beer is doing before you sell it, but I don't think anyone does that. There are other people on ICB who know more about this than me.

&amp;quot;Wobbler&amp;quot;:333nsbae wrote: As I said, I was hoping to bring in some Lambics. I'd also like to see wits[/quote:333nsbae]Cantillon would be a good one. It's a fiver a bottle at source and is worth a hell of a lot more than that on the Irish market.

Wits are harder. It's not really an inspiring style and we already have Hoegaarden and St Bernardus. Any particular brand you think might go down better?

&amp;quot;delzep&amp;quot;:333nsbae wrote: specifically Hercule Stout[/quote:333nsbae]I don't think I'd go out of my way for this. I certainly wouldn't rank it above lots of the British and American stouts I've had. I have one last Belgian stout sitting at home to try, and if I don't like it then I officially give up on Belgian stout. They're just too sweet.

&amp;quot;TheBeerNut&amp;quot;:n4j4vfws wrote:

&amp;quot;Wobbler&amp;quot;:n4j4vfws wrote: This warehouse thing is a blow. I was planning on doing it on such a small scale that I thought just a room in my gaff would do it. I'll investigate further.[/quote:n4j4vfws]It's a tax thing, I think. It's possible that you may be able to pay the tax up front so Revenue aren't bothered about what the beer is doing before you sell it, but I don't think anyone does that. There are other people on ICB who know more about this than me.[/quote:n4j4vfws]

Actually, I'm pretty sure that's what Jonathan does. Or maybe I just got the wrong end of the stick, and he said he *wasn't* doing it because it was too expensive up-front. But we definitely discussed it and I do think he paid up-front.