Pub fears over beer hike

SIDMOUTH and Ottery residents could opt to drink cheap vodka and cider at home in the face of the Chancellor’s “ruinous” decision to increase beer duty by 7.2 per cent- fears an East Devon brewery.

SIDMOUTH and Ottery residents could opt to drink cheap vodka and cider at home in the face of the Chancellor’s “ruinous” decision to increase beer duty by 7.2 per cent, fears an East Devon brewery.

Patrick McCaig, of Otter Brewery, says the increase is a “kick in the teeth” and comes at a time when those in the trade locally have already seen the price of raw materials increase along with the cost of haulage.

He believes the hike will do nothing to tackle binge drinking and damage one of Britain’s few success stories.

“Local brewers are just the kind of business this government says it wants to see prosper, they create jobs for local people and contribute to the local and wider British economy by using home-grown ingredients,” said Mr McCaig

“Yet the current beer taxation regime is killing off our main route to market - the British pub.

“The effects of this will be even more acute in rural areas where the pub if often at the centre of village life.”