Petition to save small breweries

Ito.

Although I have been enjoying real ale since the 1970s, I had little hesitation is saying that for real ale, the good old days are now.

There is no time in living memory when the choice of good beer has been as wide as it is now.

When I discovered beer, most pubs had a bitter and sometimes a mild; the choice of bottled beers was usually confined to brown ale and perhaps pale ale.

In contrast today we have a huge choice in different beer styles, flavours and strengths available as real ale, craft beer and bottled beers.

Such a level of consumer choice is surely something to be celebrated, but this wonderful situation is threatened by an ill-considered proposal to alter taxation on breweries.

The Government has decided to increase the amount of tax paid by some small independent breweries in the UK.

This could lead to brewery closures and less choice at the bar for us all.

To protect our small breweries, the beers they make, and our choice at the bar, CAMRA is now asking all drinkers as well as CAMRA members to sign a petition to the UK Parliament which asks the Government to stop the changes.

It can be found on the Government’s petition’s website, or at: tinyurl.com/y4ym2lvv.

The changes are going to be made to the Small Brewers’ Relief Scheme which CAMRA successfully campaigned for 20 years ago.

It allows small brewers to pay less tax to compensate for the economies of scale in production enjoyed by larger brewers.

Since Small Brewers Relief was introduced, the number of breweries has skyrocketed, leading to the huge range of beers that we can now enjoy in our pubs.

The Government wants to take away tax relief from the brewers at the smaller end of the production scale so that larger ‘small’ brewers can pay less – it’s a ‘reverse Robin Hood’ tax. We need to persuade the Government to think again.

Please join CAMRA in signing the petition and sharing it with your friends and family; if 100,000 people sign it, it will have to be debated in Parliament.

Discover 37,610 real ale venues across the UK at: whatpub.com.